The luscious organ-like voice of Fedora Barbieri is heard in this La Scala 1950 Orfeo under Wilhelm Furtwaengler. Hilde Gueden is Euridice and Magda Gabory is Amor.  (72 min.)

     Just enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  To all you daddies out there...Have a GREAT DAY!!!!!!

Happy Fathers' Day!!!!!! Sorry that Rigoletto and Gilda were not in a particularly good mood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  I have posted this before..but we have new members..or old members who want to sample the greatness of Mari Lyn..WITH TITLES!!!!!  I sent this to Joyce di Donato...I hope she will still talk to me....

  One can love Cesare Valletti or Irmgard Seefried, but what is wrong with also loving a BIG VOICE???? Some crabs frown on my saying that a certain voice "blew the roof off the theatre." Maybe they want to have everyone sound as if they are singing the Dichterliebe instead of Norma?
    What singers knocked you out in your life?  For ancient me, it was Nilsson,Tebaldi,Verrett,Corelli,MacNeil,Del Monaco..and other "provincial"(doity woid) singers like Lando Bartolini, Nicola Martinucci,Gino Penno,Caterina Mancini (I assume Mancini) who thrilled the hell out of us.
    Recently a singer said to me, "They don't like SQUILLO." Well, tough!!!!
No one should ever have to be apologetic for loving singers who made you feel as if the roof was shaking. In contrast, some voices cannot project at all,and despite their artistry and perhaps nice vocal quality, they cannot get the voice over the orchestra (and I assume not even with water running in my bathroom.)
       Just sit back and revel in the BIG NOISES...do we have any today???? Zajick is a rarity....I guess teachers are afraid to produce Nilssons and Corellis, and that is why a  lot of the dramatic moments in opera go for naught. Also, you could turn up a Niilsson or a Corelli recording to ear-splitting volume, and you still would not know what the artist sounded live...but you are all young and will have to accept what is there.
                                                                                    Charlie  (Guleghina fan)

  Sad day for me, remembering dear Rise and that she would have turned 100 today. The photo you see is a young me with Rise at our last music club gathering, and I feel so fortunate to have known her for those years. She is the first singer I ever met, and to this day,I can "feel" the handshake and the greasepaint when I first met her after a Met Carmen. I was 16, but the memories are so vivid.

    As we go on in life, there are some people who will forever remain in our hearts, and Rise was one of them. 

   After all these years, I just noticed that I can trace your downloads in some countries to the extent that I can see,for example, what individual provinces of China (my second most popular nation for downloads). I therefore LEARN the names of the various areas of certain countries..not all. This is very interesting, and as always I am so happy to see that these podcasts go to so many parts of the world.(nothing yet in Greenland..why?)

   As always,I thank you for your support.We are at about one million two hundred thousand "hits" in six years. What did I do when I was teaching and there was no internet?

   I thank you for your continued support. So far I have not run out of material. Again,if you have any special requests, e-mail me at Placido21@aol.com. Placido..oh yeah..he is singing all the unborn kids in Frau next season!! (Just kidding...i think.)

  The beloved Rise Stevens would be 100 on June 11, the exact same day as Richard Strauss was born in 1864. How appropriate that a great Octavian would share this day with the composer of this great work, a work in which Rise excelled. George Sebastian in San Francisco, 1945, conducts the third act of Rosenkavalier, with Rise, Lotte Lehmann, Lorenzo Alvary, Nadine Conner, Herta Glaz and Allesio de Paolis (Valzacchi and Annina), and Walter Olitzki (Faninal.)   (52 min.)

How appropriate that Rise Stevens,who would have been 100 on June 11, was born on the same day as Richard Strauss (1864). He would be PROUD!!!!

 Bless my dear Rise forever in my heart!!!!!