The buildings themselves — their acoustics, their histories, their peculiarities — and what it means to hear opera in each of them.
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The cheapest seats in the house sit directly above the orchestra pit — and what reaches you from there is, in ways that matter, more opera than what arrives in the stalls.
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The physics of an unamplified voice against a full orchestra — and why the building is as much instrument as backdrop.
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The world's most famous opera house earns its reputation — just not always for the reasons its mythology claims.
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The most distinctive sound in opera comes not from what Bayreuth's musicians play but from where they play it.