Another episode featuring orchestral songs, these arrangements by the French composer Joseph Canteloube AKA Marie-Joseph Canteloube de Malaret (1879 1957), of elaborately orchestrated folk songs fro

Today is the 60th anniversary of the death of Edith Piaf, the greatest singer in the history of French popular music. She died on the eve of my third birthday, and since I have always allowed myself t

Today I revisit the artistry of the great Patricia Neway (1919-2012), a singer of extraordinary versatility, dramatic power, and musical sensibility. She is no doubt most famous for two of her Broadwa

This week (inspired by an 10-inch LP in my collection of his songs performed by Anton Dermota and Wilma Lipp, both stalwarts of the Wiener Staatsoper in the 1950s) I present an introduction to the Lie

This weeks episode offers music of both mourning and consolation performed by treasured artists, many of whom celebrate significant anniversaries this fall, and all of whom died before their time. Th

Today I begin a series of interim episodes which will lead up to the debut of Season Five of the podcast in January 2024. These episodes will be shorter, but will still be chock full of interesting si

A week ago the extraordinary Hungarian-German soprano Julia Varady turned 82. As she is one of my favorite sopranos, I have presented her a few times on the podcast, but never on an episode devoted ex

Ian Partridge, the quintessential English lyric tenor, celebrated his 85th birthday in June. I may be a few weeks late in celebrating that event, but my enthusiasm and admiration for this singer has r

This past week the opera world was plunged into mourning over the sudden death of Renata Scotto. Originally I had intended this weeks episode to be devoted to her memory. But I cant even speak her n

Anita Cerquetti (13 April 1931 - 11 October 2014), the subject of todays episode, possessed a one in a million voice, enormous, but with prodigious flexibility, and of an immediately recognizable tim