When it began, it began as an opera would begin, in a palace, at a ball, in an encounter with a stranger who, you discover, has your fate in his hands.
-- Lilliet (Act One; Chapter One paragraph 1)

Importance: This powerful opening sentence serves a few distinct purposes. One is to establish a comparison to the opera, a parallel that drives the structure of the rest of the narrative. The second is establishing the them of being “controlled by fate.” The main character believes this to some extent since she says the stranger “has your (meaning her) fate in his hands.” Lastly, it establishes the narrator’s voice, who not only understands the opera world, but is recanting this story from some point in the future.

The life I led now I’d made so I would never be her again. I’d never wanted to be reminded of her and her struggles again. And yet, I knew...
-- Lilliet (Act One; Chapter One paragraph 9)