The original star of this still-resplendent production was Renata Tebaldi, if you please, with Herbert von Karajan on the podium. The year was 1957, the director was the ex-ballerina Margarethe Wallmann, the designer Nicola Benois, inheritor of traditions going back to the Mariinsky Theatre in imperial Saint Petersburg. You want to know what grand opera is? Watch and learn. —M.G.