At The New Criterion, I have a review of Thursday night’s performance of Don Carlo, the Verdi masterpiece, at the Metropolitan Opera. The next day, I read Andrew Porter’s obit.

He was a music critic, a music scholar, and a man of immense learning and experience. For 20 years, he wrote for The New Yorker. He was especially knowledgeable about opera. In the 1970s, he discovered large sections of Don Carlo that had been thought lost forever.

I met him once, in London. David and Clarissa Pryce-Jones did me the favor of inviting him to lunch. At one point, I found myself asking him a question I knew I could: “Do you have a favorite opera?” Almost before the words were out of my mouth, he said, “The Magic Flute” (Mozart). Emboldened, I said, “You wouldn’t happen to have a favorite singer, would you?” Almost before the words were out of my mouth, he said, “Callas.”

I feel privileged to have met Andrew Porter.