What legends in the Classical Music world have you seen, live; in particular, whom did you see at the very end of their career? Or were you there at a particularly special debut, and did you know you were seeing the start of something big? (Singer, instrumentalist, conductor)
Myself, I have seen several greats, but mostly mid-way: Kiri's Violetta, Placido's Otello, Jose Carreras' Werther and Luciano in Un Ballo in Maschera at the ROH, Sir Colin Davis, Paul Tortelier almost at the end of his performing days, likewise Dame Janet Baker who retired far too soon. Oh, and Ravi Shankar twice, a legend if ever there was one.
My parents saw the legendary Joan Sutherland's Lucia di Lammermuir, but not her debut performance, and old friends saw Maria Callas's Tosca, near her last days.
Let's go down memory lane.

Hi, you are about to receive some of the longest posts ever from some of our regular contributors esp. Piso after his ,albeit backtracked, claim to have met Brahms as a child. I'll keep my powder dry for the moment. If you suffer from insomnia you could print out the posts (and boasts) in about a month's time with a cup of cocoa. Regards. Tom.

[Deleted by the author on 23 Oct 2009 00:48 BST]

Oh, show-off.

Only kidding. I'm just jealous. But I did ask. What a list! Actually, I forgot, I saw Segovia too, and that must have been right at the end of his career. Quite something. I live in hope of seeing Juan Diego Florez too, but to get a ticket for such a big star here you have to stump up a whole lot of money just to become a 'Friend of Covent Garden' in order to have the chance of buying tickets before the plebs. 25-30 years ago it wasn't so expensive, so I was a Friend for a few years, hence the Opera memories.
I could have sworn I saw Cecilia Bartoli as a student in Italy, but a while ago I checked her age and she would only have been 14, so it must have been her clone. Shame.
That must be quite a collection of programmes etc. I used to have a collection (roughly a hundredth the size of your collection I think), mostly of ROH opera visits, several of which I actually can't remember now, but in a fit of tidyness, threw them away....

[Deleted by the author on 23 Oct 2009 00:48 BST]

Hi Piso, I told Mrs Reval that you would not disappoint. In order to reduce her to a catatonic state could you supply performance details for all of them, dates, places, other performers and pieces performed should be adequate. By the way I didn't realise that Betty Blackhead was a schizophrenic with at least 4 named personalities. I liked it and have given you a 'helpful' vote. I can't wait for B.'s response. Regards. Tom. PS you haven't blown up all of my powder but I'll await the entry of the other gladiators.

I'm so out of breath after reading Mr Mojado's list, Tom, that I'm lost for words. I note that he doesn't include Andrew Preview (have just watched his programme on BBC iPlayer - the man's even more of a genius than I realised, if one can quantify genius which I suppose one can't).
I can add Kyung Wha Chung and Radu Lupu to my list; they came to my little provincial town many years ago, as did the great Paul Tortelier whom I mentioned before. I suspect they all suffered a thousand deaths playing in the local hall, but PT was very magnanimous and gentlemanly about it, even kissed my hand... Jessye Norman I saw at ROH, Jon Vickers and Ileana Cotrubas too. And as I mentioned elsewhere I have just recently seen Angelika Kirchschlager, Diana Damrau (who may be heading for great things, provided she chooses carefully), Anja Silja and the great Thomas Allen. OK, some more legendary than others, and a paltry list next to Mojado's, but wonderful memories for me.
Tom, Mr Basil and other gentlemen, I await your lists. Be not embarrassed, at least they'll be longer than mine. Ah well, I can claim that I have (relative) youth on my side, among other things, to excuse the short list.

Hi Mrs. Raval, I'm glad that you found the Previn programme. I can only think of one other person in the 20th century who combined all of Previn's all-round talents, i.e. Leonard Bernstein. Both maestros or geniuses if you prefer. I'll wait to see lists by Basilides, John F., Rob Pickett etc to see if I have any left. Best wishes. Tom.

Oh go on, tell us, Tom. OK, if you won't do a list, tell us your favourites.

This is where a Medium might come in handy...

B. Raval, Tom Kent -- I might have given half my list to see your Hansel and Gretel ... what a cast! I think I got carried away with my memories, they certainly are not all legends. I saw "The Wolfman", Radu Lupu, at least once, and penetrated his assorted snorts and snufflings to hear some beautiful playing. He brought his own straight-backed kitchen chair as usual. Abbey Simon has one also, built up where seat joins back to propel him forward without playing a note, and Glenn Gould's chair was as famous as he was. When Gregory Sokolov plays, his heavy breathing can be heard outside in the street, but such are the byways of art. I never saw Jon Vickers and wish I had. Thomas Allen is an old fave, in RVW's and Louis Stevenson's "Songs of Travel" and in opera. It's not the length of list, but the tenacity of retentiveness and intensity. "All that matters is the grandeur of the conception." Doesn't Dali have a title like "The Persistence of Memory"?

(very small voice, writhing) who is Andrew Preview please? I think you and Tom are having a flutter on Previn. I'm sure it all has something to do with Mia Farrow.

I'll mention only two, one in unusual circumstances and one just before he became famous. My first is the Spanish cello soloist Gaspar Cassado, in the depths of Central Africa in the early 50s - a very rare sort of visit to our part of the world, though we did get Joyce Grenfell. The second was Gustavo Dudamel, who visited Liverpool a few months before his Proms appearance and shortly before his Gothenburg appointment, and made quite an impression on the Phil audience but failed to get coverage in our national press.

Tom Kent -- Mrs. Raval advises privately that she is in a virtual catatonic state already, and that it will not be necessary to load program details, &tc. of my list as you kindly suggested. I am sure she exaggerates. I DID try and promptly blew out Amazon's North American grid.

(to Piso, re Andrew Preview) Oh don't be embarrassed! That's SO sweet!!! OK, I won't mock. Back in the seventies we had an enormously popular comedy duo on BBC television called Morecambe and Wise who used to have some pretty top people as guests on their show. Well, Andre Previn must have been one of the toppest, if not THE. They insisted on calling him Andrew Preview (in pretence of ignorance, as fitted their usual act), and then persuaded said Andrew Preview that they were going to play the Grieg piano concerto, Eric at the keyboard....well the best thing you can do is go on Youtube, type in Morecambe and Wise: Andre Previn and click on the one that says 80th Birthday greetings after it, posted by ZombiZone. That gives you the whole act. So....not only can AP compose, orchestrate, conduct, play classical piano and jazz piano and lord knows what else, he can also do first-rate comic timing, while keeping a straight face AND suffer whatever Morecambe and Wise come up with to inflict on his dignity. Also, go to bbc.co.uk, click on iPlayer halfway down the homepage on the right hand side and type Andre Previn: All the Right Notes into search, and you will find a very nice biographical programme about him, in honour of his 80th birthday. Best do that today, as things usually only stay on iPlayer for a week. While he was married to Mia Farrow, he lived here in Surrey, and appeared regularly on the BBC. Apparently he still loves it when people remember 'Andrew Preview'.

Re comedy turns: Not forgetting the estimable Victor Borge and (for his comments on 'music for children') Tom Lehrer.

Mondoro -- Victor Borge was inspired, and I heard old songs of Tom Lehrer on a visit to Louisville last year, too clever by half for his own good. But after all the fun, Borge could play a decent Mozart sonata, and did.

And Eric Morecambe certainly could not play Grieg's Piano Concerto, as you will have seen if you have watched the sketch on Youtube, Piso. I'm not certain to what extent he could play - basics, at least.
Come to think of it, you've probably had a birthday tribute to Andre Previn on a U.S. t.v. channel.
I remember Victor Borge, though I don't think I ever saw him do anything serious (but knew he could).

Hi,Mrs.Raval (still haven't picked up your first name). Thanks, you have brilliantly saved me the effort of explaining M&W + Mr.Preview to Piso. It is a very British sense of comedy without recourse to F-words or lavatory humour albeit with a little surrealism. The newsreader Angela Rippon comes to mind dancing brilliantly with a pair of legs the Bluebell Girls would have killed for. We had only seen her serious upper half reading horrible stories from around the UK and the world. I doubt if many had ever seen her radiant smile behind the perfect BBC English accent before. Best wishes, Tom.

Hi Tom, it's Bryher (as in the Scilly Isle).
I think you are dodging the issue here; I'm still waiting for your list. I'm not looking for big boasts or anything, I'm just interested in what people have seen. Also curious about memory: mine is terrible. I know my list is short, but I also know I have seen other things and cannot remember what, or whom. The first opera I ever saw live was Rigoletto, in my teens, in the '70s, and I know I was riveted, but I cannot remember who sang the title role. Maddening.
Yes I remember Angela Rippon too. But why should I remember that and not the other thing?
Don Piso, amusing to read about the chairs and the noises! I hope you did have a look at Morecambe and Wise. I suppose they were a bit legendary in themselves, and that particular programme has passed into modern myth. Probably because Andre Previn is such a respected musician and M&W hardly treated him with the sort of crawling worship most top musicians get; he fully entered into the spirit of the thing, easily matched M&W on comic timing, and really enjoyed it - AND apparently that was all done with only a very short rehearsal because he was so busy.
As Tom says the humour of M&W was very British, and now rather old-fashioned, but still enjoyable because it was clean and distinctly surreal.
Mondoro, fantastic that you saw early Gustavo Dudamel - it's odd that he didn't get any press at that time, because his name certainly was at least in the early stages of being known before his Prom appearance. There we have the beginnings of a likely legend; we will see as the years go by. He certainly brings an unusual level of liveliness and joy to his music, and the Simon Bolivar Orchestra clearly love what they do. I think the jury is still out as to the actual quality of their performances, but perhaps that really doesn't matter considering their origins.

Bryher Raval, must look up the Scilly Isle. To put things in perspective, the first opera I saw as a high-school student was Michael Balfe's "The Bohemian Girl", of which I remember only "I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls." Prob'ly just as well, I have not re-visited it. I expect Tom Kent will share a name or two with us in good time. I hope so. Gustavo Dudamel is here in Chicago this week and has conducted two programmes, one with his Simon Bolivar orchestra from Venezuela, another with a mixed young persons' band ... one sold out, the other sparsely manned. Reviewers mentioned a huge orchestra of more than 100 players, and no doubt Handel Festival gestures. An Amazonian attended (I did not) and talked to Dudamel afterward, saying he's quite sensible, even modest. I do like conductors who manage with mouth closed but quite understand there are different regional requirements. I have not seen AP's comedy bit, as something is wrong with me or my You Tube function. Or both. But I take it on faith.

I've just re-read your original question. Alfred Cortot was near the end of his career when I saw him, but very grand and incredibly beautiful. He could also, like his friend Furtwaengler whom I never saw, create effects that were surreal, virtually hallucinatory. I was so stupended I did not even try to see Cortot afterward. The Walkuere I saw with Hans Hotter, Set Svanholm, and Birgit Nilsson was her U.S. debut. Erich Leinsdorf conducted, as he did Don Giovanni a few nights later, presiding at the harpsichord, accompanying all the recitatives himself, without a stick of music in front of him. I had seen the entire Ring at Bayreuth the year before, Hotter and Keilberth.

May I add a few names, though nothing as exceptional as some of the previous? Georges Enesco (late in life),Ida Haendel, Sargent, Fonteyn, Basil Cameron, Moura Lympany, Weldon, Georges Tzipine, Barbirolli, Horenstein, Renato Fasano, Milanov, Corelli, Rubenstein, Tossy Spivakovsky, Myra Hess, Rothwell, Kerstin Meyer, Richard Lewis, Kim Borg, Endre Wolf, Geraint Evans, Britten , Pears, Stern, Konwitchny, Sutherland, Proctor, Lewenthal, Badura-Skoda, Kempe, Schwartz, Boult, Silvestri, Hurst, Carlyle, Shuard, Curzon, Bronhill, Lazslo Somogni, Arrau, Beecham, Denis Matthews, Gary Graffman, Gamba, Rowicki, Silvestri, da Vito, Morrison, Peter Katin, Windgassen, Hotter, Fischer-Dieskau, Monteux (shortly before his death), Levine, Lukas Foss, Frankl, and Rodney-Bennett. A mixture of locations, starting in the U.K. and including Europe and the USA.

Hello B[ryher] Raval - Gustavo Dudamel's contribution to music education for young people via the sistema may be even more significant than his conducting; after all, he is really only just starting and the critics, while liking his Proms CD have been divided about his Beethoven. But what is really encouraging is the way some local authorities in the UK are trying to bring in a variant of the sistema here: there's been a lot of recent publicity here, which I think should help after several decades in which classical music and the young have become increasingly separated. With other initiatives like Tasmin Little's 'music for all', where she performs in unusual environments around the country, thuings are looking up - but there is a great deal of ground that needs to be made up.

I'll add another to my list of people just starting their career on a small way, who made big time: Norman Bailey. He sang the bass solo in Brahms' German Requiem, again in Central Africa, with us in 1958, before going to London.

Piso: Does Tom Lehrer still perform? I thought he gave up after Kissinger received the Nobel Peace Prize.