The Maestro of nineteenth century Italian opera is remembered in more selections from his operas as well as the Requiem Mass.  Juan Diego Florez, Renee Fleming, Placido Domingo, Sherrill Milnes and Maria Callas will be heard among various artists.

No need to send a card.  Verdi would rather have you hear selections of his music.  This program is a feast for the opera lover featuring such artists as Joan Sutherland and Franco Corelli among others.   Of special interest is a recording by the baritone Verdi chose to be his first Falstaff, Victor Maurel.

Poor Butterfly!  So began the words of a popular song of many decades ago.  The story of Cio-Cio San is told once again in Lyric Opera’s newest presentation of Puccini’s opera.  Larry will offer arias sung by Leontyne Price, Beniamino Gigli, Angela Gheorghiou, and Enrico Caruso among others as well as the Metropolitan Opera’s first […]

Lyric has chosen Verdi’s Otello to open the 2013-14 season.  Larry prepares you for Lyric’s new season with a tour de force recording by Jon Vickers as the Moor along with other artists.

The atmosphere will be distinctly Handelian as you are taken to the eighteenth century with selections from the master’s operas and oratorios.  Featured artists will be Eleanor Steber, David Daniels, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and others as well. Playlist Handel:   Chlori  Part II  “Barbaro!”   Lorraine Hunt Lieberson with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra conducted by Nicholas McGegan  […]

Larry remembers the now mostly forgotten but once hugely successful movie soprano, Deanna Durbin.  She came to Hollywood as a young teenager in the 1930s with a voice that would mature into a lovely soprano in the 1940s.  Then she was gone by age 30.  A story and a voice certainly worth hearing. Playlist: Coslow-Hollander:   […]

You may want to dust off your dancing shoes for this most diverse of programs that include songs from Dimitri Hvorostovsky, Luciano Pavarotti as well as Fred Astaire, Julie Andrews and more. Playlist: Tchaikovsky:   “At the Ball”   Dimitri Hvorostovsky with Mikhail Arkadiev, piano   Recorded in London in 1993   PHILIPS 442 536-2 Harris:   “After the Ball”   […]

Some of opera’s most melodious and thrilling trios are featured in this program from Mozart to Gilbert & Sullivan.

It’s all about the boys in this program of duets.    All good buddies . . . or are they?  A highlight will be a lesser known version of the Pearl Fishers Duet. Playlist Puccini:   La Boheme   “Oh, Mimi tu piu non torni”   Jerry Hadley and Thomas Hampson with the Orchestra of the Welsh National Opera conducted by Carlo […]

Listeners will be taken on a musical journey to Norway for songs by that country’s greatest composer, Edvard Grieg.  A special treat will be a recording made by Grieg himself of one of his own compositions.