Gaylard Marks Milestone In Watching Live Opera
Many people go their entire lives without watching an opera. But not Timothy Gaylard – he’s seen 1,000.
According to Gaylard’s records, Charlottesville Opera’s performance of “Barber of Seville” on July 17 was the thousandth live opera he’s attended. It marks the completion of Gaylard’s personal goal and the end of a decadeslong journey that began with his first opera viewing more than 55 years ago.
But he said his love for music started even earlier than that.
“Way back, being a child, I always had an interest in music,” he said.
Early on, he said his main interest was in playing piano. Opera was something he came to appreciate later, mainly because of his self-admitted “obsession” with the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
“I think Mozart was the gateway for me to like opera,” Gaylard said, “because he’s written some really fine operas.”
His first opera was by Mozart: “Don Giovanni.” Gaylard watched the Canadian Opera Company perform it on tour in his hometown of Ottawa in 1970. But he said he wasn’t hooked on the genre immediately.
“I wasn’t particularly interested, but I was getting interested,” he said.
Gaylard started to become really invested in college. He studied math and music at Ottawa’s Carleton University. He said he had friends who sang in the chorus for operas at Canada’s National Arts Center, which gave him one reason to attend shows.
But he said he’s seen the most operas at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, which accounts for 365 of his 1,000 performances. He started going to the Met consistently when he came to Columbia University as a graduate student in 1977.
“Because I was a poor grad student, I would get what’s called standing room tickets,” he said.
Standing room tickets only cost about $4 or $5, Gaylard said. But they allowed him to see famous performers like the Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti.
“When I heard some of these great singers live, it was just a revelation, you know, why they were as famous as they were,” he said.
Gaylard became a music professor at W&L in 1984. He retired in 2020 after 36 years of teaching.
Now, he’s seen operas in Richmond, Philadelphia, Sarasota and Washington, D.C. He’s traveled abroad to Austria, the Czech Republic, England, Italy and Spain and watched performances in those countries as well.
Many of the operas he’s seen are repeats. The 1,000 performances he’s watched account for 292 different operas.
But Gaylard said “Don Giovanni” remains one of his favorites. He’s watched it live 46 times – more than any other opera.
He said his other favorite is Giuseppe Verdi’s “Don Carlos,” which he’s seen 35 times. Verdi is Gaylard’s most watched composer at 187 operas, followed by Mozart with 165.
Though Gaylard has been watching operas since 1970, he said his goal wasn’t always to watch 1,000.
“As I got close to 500, I thought, ‘You know, maybe I can make a thousand.’” he said. “So I started to make a thousand my goal. I didn’t know how long it would take.”
The COVID-19 pandemic slowed things down, he said. The shutdowns and social distancing caused by the pandemic limited him to only 11 total shows between 2020 and 2021.
But he made up ground in 2025, when he saw 46 operas. That surge helped him reach 1,000 just a couple weekends ago.
Gaylard said he was joined by his wife, his three daughters, and one son-in-law for his milestone opera. Before the performance, he got a special shoutout from the opera’s artistic director.
“She mentioned my name and had me stand up, and the audience ... gave me a little applause,” he said.
Gaylard said he still isn’t tired of watching operas, and he isn’t going to stop at 1,000. But he did say he won’t try to watch 46 in one year again – apparently, even the biggest fan has his limits.
