One day recently George and I were trying to figure out who the stars were in a performance of Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier that we saw when the Metropolitan Opera was on tour in Cleveland in the early ’80s.  I remembered for sure that the Marschallin was Elisabeth Söderström, and I thought that Octavian was probably Frederica Von Stade, but I didn’t remember who sang Sophie.

He then uncovered an amazing reference site at the Met’s web site: a database of every performance and performer under the Met’s auspices, including tour performers.  In that site he was able to determine that the performers were (as I thought) Söderström, Von Stade, and Kathleen Battle as Sophie.  They were the Rosenkavalier trio of the day.

Then in best Web 2.0 fashion, he found on Youtube a video of the great final trio from the opera from a Met gala of the time (the 100th anniversary celebration of the Met).  The best five minutes in all of opera (despite Von Stade’s really unfortunate dress):