Here is one of many compilations of great artists at Covent Garden in the period 1904-1910.

    They're all good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Was I born too late?

1.Emmy Destinn    Lohengrin:            Elsa's Traum

2. Melba/Caruso   O soave fanciulla (her high C is to DIE FOR!)

3. Charles Dalmores  Carmen             Flower Song

4. Emma Calve            Herodiade        Il est doux.

5. Giuseppe Anselmi   Tosca   Recondita Armonia  (note slight change in ending)

6.Celestina Boninsegna     Ballo           Ma dall'arrido

7. Selma Kurz    Les Huguenots            O Beau pays  (famous for her trill)

8. Giovanni Zenatello      Andrea Chenier     Si, fui soldato

9. Riccardo Stracciari       Trovatore        Il Balen

10.Mattia Battistini           Faust                Valentin's aria

11. Clarence Whitehill      Meistersinger   Wahn! Wahn!

12. Maria Gay (Mrs.Zenatello)   Carmen    Card aria  (slight chest voice.)

13. John McCormack          Don Giovanni     Il mio tesoro  (considered the STANDARD!)

14. Alessandro Bonci          Pearl Fishers     Je crois entendre

15. Edoardo Garbin              Fedora                Vedi,io piango (w.Giannina Russ.)

16. Louise Kirkby-Lunn       Samson et Delilah     Printemps qui commence

17. Emile Vanni-Marcoux   Pelleas et Melisande   Una grande innocence

18. Mario Sammarco            Otello                   Era la notte

19. Peter Cornelius                Walkure              Wintursturme   (in Danish)

                                        (71 min.)

  I always brought opera to my foreign language students, and even staged the shaving scene from the Barbiere once. Kids need to be brought UP to appreciate what the arts are all about.

  In the Bronx, New York, the absolutely brilliant and lovable counter-tenor, Anthony Roth Costanzo has brought opera to sixth grade kids and I am just overwhelmed by his efforts. You do not have to be a teacher to love what you see here. May he continue on this quest to educate young people in this way, and of course continue to thrill opera audiences all over the globe.

 Despite some rather distant sound (the tape recorder was not close up), we hear a New Orleans Les Huguenots from 1975 under Knud Andersson. The cast features Rita Shane (Marguerite), Marisa Galvany (Valentine), Enrico di Giuseppe (Raoul), Paul Plishka (Marcel), Susan Marsee (Urbain), and Dominic Cossa (Nevers).     (70 min.)