Confessions of an opera lover: Ethan Mordden recalls his early days of going to the old Met, when he first came under the spell of opera.

Years later, people ask how it started: the sheer volume of music and storytelling, the high-strung performers, the faintly Gilded Age atmosphere ... and then doesn't the fat lady sing and the scenery fall down? It's apocalypse now.

So they wonder what leads one to this crazy universe--and so do I. Some may have a moment of discovery, as if struck by lightning. When I was a teenager, a bunch of us ushered at the Long Island Festival, a summer tent housing every art from a flamenco troupe to Van Cliburn. The prima was an evening of ballet, starting with Les Sylphides, and even today I remember my schoolmate Sally Burton staring at the stage in delight as the ...