all her performances. "Because of the burning intensity and conviction of her dramatic projection," wrote Clyde T. McCants in his book on American opera singers, "sometimes listening to Troyanos's recordings we tend to forget the radiant glory of the voice itself." While the St. James Opera Encyclopedia acknowledged that "the persistent pulse of her vibrato," which imbued roles like Carmen with "a fiercely elemental life force," was "not to every listener's taste," David Hamilton offered another perspective: the "close pickup" of one recording, he wrote in High Fidelity magazine, "unflatteringly magnifies the natural vibrato of Tatiana Troyanos' beautiful voice into something more like a beat ... a distortion of the effect she makes in a hall." As her "vibrato uncoiled to yield a plummier sound", wrote Cori Ellison, "she chose to stretch her medium-weight voice to suit her temperament", adding Wagner roles at the Met—beginning with Venus in Tannhäuser (opening the 1978 season) and Kundry in Parsifal (initially in a Saturday matinee broadcast in 1980) — while continuing to sing Mozart, Handel, and Cavalli. From 1981 to 1983, she appeared in all three season opening nights at the Met — "typically enough", James Levine, the conductor for all three, noted, "in three different styles and languages" — as Adalgisa in Bellini's Norma in 1981 (opposite Renata Scotto and Plácido Domingo), Octavian in Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier in 1982 (opposite Kiri Te Kanawa and Kurt Moll), and Didon in Berlioz's Les Troyens in 1983. She also appeared in seven new productions at the Met, including the company's premiere productions of Berg's Lulu (as Countess Geschwitz) in 1977, Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex (as Jocasta) in 1981, Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito (as Sesto) in 1984, and Handel's Giulio Cesare (as Cesare) in 1988. In her La Scala debut in 1977, she sang in Norma opposite Montserrat Caballé in the first opera performance to be televised live throughout the world. Opera and concert repertoire Troyanos was known for her impassioned portrayals of everything from trouser roles to femmes fatales; "the most boyish rose-bearer was also the most womanly Charlotte," wrote George Birnbaum in the Classical CD Scout. "I'm lucky that I look like the roles I do, whether it's Octavian or Carmen or Kundry or Giulietta ... It's a flexible look and I'm a flexible actress. I must get ahold of a role or die", Troyanos once said. Asked which mezzo type she'd rather play,