From Turino, 1999 under John Mauceri, the great Renata Scotto sings Poulenc's one-woman opera, La Voix Humaine. I know you will enjoy one of the very last of the great verismo divas. (50 min.)

With permission of the star, here is a sampling of Piotr Beczala's new Verdi album.Mariusz Kwiecien joins him in the Don Carlo (with a nice interpolated high C at then end.) I think you will all love it. I get NO commision, although there are some who think I ought to be committed.

 What a joy to see that a young "kid' is so well-educated in opera that he is influencing others to enjoy his marvelous site. Here is some info..and his site may be found at: operateen.wordpress.com.I had no internet when I was his age, and what a pleasure to have someone NOT KNOW who Justin Bieber is!!!

DIOS MIO!!!!! I just discovered Lucrecia Garcia..She is all over Youtube...What a soprano,in the "old tradition." Check her out!!!!!!!

Here is Piotr Beczala as the Duke in the new Met (modernized) Rigoletto. I actually liked the production, despite some of the DUMB translations. I do not read titles, but I hear some were really silly.

Under the direction of the legendary Fritz Reiner, we present an all-star Rosenkavalier featuring the beloved late Rise Stevens, Eleanor Steber, Erna Berger, Emanuel List, Martha Lipton, and Giuseppe Di Stefano. The only time in all my opera-going in which I totally "lost it," was at the finale of the trio. Many people have considered the Rosenkavalier trio as the most sublime moment in ALL opera. I surely agree.  (70 min.)

  May I share with you (whether you care or not) one of the really delightful experiences of my early opera-going, when my friends and I had nothing to do in the summer, with no MET! A dear friend, Joan Abel, invented a take-off on the famous Monopoly game and called it "Monoperaly" Each of the players had little pieces of papers with singers names and points. We had big fistfights first when we had to decide how many points a Flagstad would get compared to a Baum.
       The concept was that if you rolled the dice (no rolling Marijuana cigarettes at that time) and landed on an OPERA (Joanie covered the usual places with names of operas, so if i landed on BORIS and could cast it with the singers in my collection (with the approval of everyone),I could OWN IT, and if you ever landed on it, I could take your singers,if they were also appropriate..so for example,if you had  London,Siepi,Hines,etc..and i could cast it with YOUR singers, I got them (like money).
     One night i landed on Siegfried, but had only people like Peters, Valletti,etc. and I could not cast it..although I did argue for a "lyric Siegfried," but was voted down!!!
 Jail was BED....GO was "Va fuggi"(like Zinka in Trovatore), and some of the Community chest cards were things like "Zinka falls on your head..go back 5 spaces," or "Pick a singer from the "bank" without looking and you have to go to BED with the singer.(I once got BAUM!!!)
     So you see how much crazy fun we had, but I was very immature then,and as you know I am now ready for more intelligent games like "Potsy" and " Kill the tenor."
     There was once an opera game called "Triviata," and i wonder if it still in existence. Maybe some of you more intelligent people could think of something (keep it clean) we could do online that might be fun for mature opera lovers..but you will NEVER match Monoperaly.
     Thanks Joanie,wherever you are!!!!! Charlie

Anja Silja,Phillip Langridge and Roberta Alexander combine in the great finale of Janacek's Jenufa, one of the finest operas ever written.

 You know by now how much I loved the beloved Leyla Gencer, sometimes flawed, but nevertheless,one of the most important sopranos. Here are excerpts from a 1957  la Scala Forza under Antonino Votto, with Giuseppe di Stefano,Cesare Siepi,Aldo Protti, and Franco Calabrese (Marchese).  (73 min.)

A compilation of some of the most important Italian artists from around the 1950-1960 period. Included are Tito Gobbi, Magda Olivero, Anita Cerquetti, Cesare Valletti, Paolo Silveri, Renata Scotto, Carlo Bergonzi, Rosanna Carteri, Mario Filippeschi, Renata Tebaldi, Ebe Stignani, and Giuseppe Di Stefano. (70 min.)