Larry recalls the great American baritone for his 100th birthday anniversary. We will hear him in his most prominent Verdi roles as well as the Toreador in Carmen and as the Barber of Seville.

A collection of gems from operas by Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Rachmaninoff featuring Galina Vishnevskaya, Mariusz Kwiencien and Milizia Korjus. The highlight will be the Coronation Scene from Boris Godunov with Boris Christoff.

This retrospective honors an artist who made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1950 at age twenty and remained there for the next thirty five years. We hear her in some of her signature roles as Rosina in the Barber of Seville , Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor, the page boy in A Masked Ball, the Queen of the Night in the Magic Flute and much more.

Selling her flowers at Covent Garden, Eliza Doolittle meets Professor Henry Higgins in Lyric Opera’s My Fair Lady. From the original London cast we will hear Julie Andrews, Rex Harrison and Stanley Holloway plus surprise appearances by Birgit Nilsson and George London.

Come celebrate the 100th birthday anniversary of the First Lady of Song, Ella Fitzgerald. Larry presents recordings from Harlem in the 1930s through her Great American Songbook series with songs by Porter, Berlin and Gershwin plus her Grammy Award winning Mack the Knife in concert in Berlin in 1960. Playlist: Fitzgerald-Alexander: “ATiskit,aTaskit” Ella Fitzgerald with […]

So many operatic characters have interesting professions. We meet a barber who not surprisingly works in Seville. There is a cobbler, a post office worker, a soldier and a sailor. There is even a doctor who makes house calls. Playlist: Rossini: The Barber of Seville, “Largo al Factotum” Sesto Bruscantini with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra […]

A very easy on the ear collection of songs from sunny Italy. Tenors are Franco Corelli, Jonas Kaufman, Lucian Pavarotti, Carlo Bergonzi, Beniamino Gigli and Placido Domingo. Who could ask for more?

We go to London in the 1930s for scenes from Noel Coward’s plays, Private Lives and Red Peppers acted and sung with his frequent stage partner, Gertrude Lawrence. Hear a medley of Coward songs and selections by Ms. Lawrence from The King and I and Lady in the Dark.

Bizet’s gypsy temptress is seducing Chicago once again. This program features Leontyne Price and Maria Callas as Carmen, Franco Corelli and Nicolai Gedda as Don Jose, Mirella Freni as Michaela and Tom Krause as the Toreador.

A favorite device for murder and suicide as Angela Gheorghiu finds out as Juliet along with Montserrat Caballe as Adriana Lecouvreur, Maria Callas as Leonora in Il Trovatore and Joan Sutherland as Suor Angelica. Playlist: Gounod: Romeo et Juliet, “Poison Aria” Angela Gheorghiu with the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse Conducted by Michel Plasson Recorded […]