Can anybody identify a historic operatic performance of the past 30 years? When I first took an interest in opera in the 1970s there were people, of an older generation, who seemed to say the only great singers were the dead singers. I am turning into one of them. I cannot think of any operatic performances since 1993 that quality as "historic". Let's look at other 30-year periods and their legendary performances:
1900-1930 (Caruso & Ponselle in Verdi)
1930-1960 (Callas & DiStefano at La Scala, Milanov & Tebaldi in the Italian repertoire, Melchior & Flagstad singing Wagner)
1960-1990 (Price, Corelli, Sutherland, Nilsson, Pavarotti, Domingo)