Selections from the Age of Bel Canto are heard today from La Sonnambula, Lucia di Lammermoor and Norma. Bel Canto specialists are Maria Callas, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Joan Sutherland, Marilyn Horne, Cecilia Bartoli, Juan Diego Florez and more.

Bored with winter? Larry takes us to a more welcoming and warmer climate today as we hear the music of Brazilian composers sung by Bidu Sayao, Victoria de los Angeles, Arleen Auger, Elsie Houston and Frederick Fuller.

We begin the New Year with selections by one of the premier composers of the American Musical Theatre with selections from his Broadway shows including Showboat as sung by Frederica Von Stade and Jerry Hadley. Other selections to be sung by Rise Stevens, Thomas Hampson, Fred Astaire and more.

Wine is the choice of Jussi Bjoerling, Sherrill Milnes, Marilyn Horne and Maria Novikova in operas Cavalleria Rusticana, Hamlet, Lucrezia Borgia and La Perichole. It’s beer for Jerry Hadley’s Student Prince and bubbling champagne for Leslie Caron, Hermione Gingold and Louis Jourdan in Gigi.

In the true spirit of Christmas this program offers sacred music of Bach and Handel sung by Peter Pears, Eleanor Steber, Juan Diego Florez and the Robert Shaw Chorale plus Reger’s Maria Wiegenlied sung by Claudia Muzio.

Salome by Richard Strauss is a tawdry tale of a teenage Princess who comes to a very bad end. Ljuba Wellitsch sings the Final Scene and Fritz Reiner conducts. Also Giulietta Simionato is a spiteful Princess in Adriana Lecouvreur.

Larry observes the 100th birthday anniversary of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf with recordings from The Marriage of Figaro, Der Rosenkavalier, the Four Last Songs, Der Vogelhandler, a song by Hugo Wolf and a most heartfelt version of Danny Boy.

Gorgeous melodies abound as we choose partners for a waltz and hear selections from Franz Lehar’s beloved Merry Widow. Dance partners include Kitty Carlisle, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Nicolai Gedda, Hanny Stefek, Angelika Kirschlager and Simon Keenlyside.

Two millennia ago the Roman Empire ruled supreme over much of Europe and the Mediterranean world. This program features the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra in Hasse’s Antonio e Cleopatra. In Roman occupied Gaul a Druid priestess and her Roman lover sing in Bellini’s Norma and Cecilia, an early Christian martyr dies in Licinio Refice’s opera of that name.

Larry will offer vocal selections requested by WFMT listeners and donors who purchased tickets and attended Musicales in his home. Requests will include arias sung Jussi Bjoerling, Renata Scotto, Alfredo Kraus and Beverly Sills in recordings conducted by Riccardo Muti and Arturo Toscanini among others.