NPR

Classical Music's Greatest Love Stories, On And Offstage

Just in time for Valentine's Day, commentator Miles Hoffman highlights the most notable of classical music couples.
Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya with her husband, Russian cellist, conductor and composer Mstislav Rostropovich in 1959.

Classical music has plenty of infamous fictional couples: Dido and Aeneas, MimĂŹ and Rodolfo, and of course, Romeo and Juliet.

"The thing about fictional love stories in music is that, especially in opera, most of them end very badly, you know, with the lovers singing heartrending arias just before they founder and violinist and professor at the Schwob School of Music. "But in real life, there have been tons of musical couples who've fallen in love and lived happily ever after — or at least happily for a long while."

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