Absolutely LOVE Tucker and Merril! :-)
My maternal grandfather was a super, in his spare time, for fun, when he was a young man and knew ALL of the greats of that time.
I grew up with LIVE FROM THE MET on the radio, on the weekends, so I still know most of the words to the GREATS and what the story lines are.
Like you, I grew up in a family of readers and was surrounded by lots of books. My grandmother would Bodlerize the great books as she read them to me, when I was bitty; Shakespeare too.
My parents both also painted and my father was an expert re ART; especially the pointillists and Dali. He would deliver lectures to me, when we were at a museum. When the Huntington Hartford had a Dali exhibit, in the mid '60s, daddy was at it and he drew a crowd that followed us around to hear him. LOL
Oh yes...one got an education at school, but a better one at home! It sounds as though we had somewhat similar childhoods. :-)
My grandmother was a child prodigy concert pianist, so classical music was like mother's milk to me too.
It's truly wonderful to meet someone, here, who "gets it". We might be a bit "strange" ( to others and the way they were raised ), but I'm glad that I had what I did and I can tell that you are on the same page. :-)
I LOVE your family story; it's MARVELOUS!
My paternal grandparents were opera singers. Gram sang at the Met (ok, in the chorus, but still . . . ) Dad's earliest memory was of sitting between them in the choir in church. We are all singers -
I'm a big G&S fan also. Sadly, only know Green through recordings!
But it's hardly fair to call die Zauberflöte "operetta". Mozart called it "deutsche Oper" - Singspiel, if you like.