Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Thank you to everyone who donated this month and helped us reach our Bach Pot goal of 500 donations. There is still time to get your donation in - make your contribution today!
What's ahead on The Classical Network? Catch some of these great programs coming your way. Information on evening concert broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and other nationally broadcast performances can be found on our home page.

Leonard Warren this Sunday October 31 on the Lyric Stage

In 1938, Leonard Warren, then in his late twenties, went to his boss, the chorus master of the Radio City Music Hall where Warren had sung for three years. Warren wanted time off to prepare for the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air. The boss agreed, and added that Warren didn't need to come back. (This may or may not be true). Thus encouraged, Warren selected one of the five opera arias he knew and did the audition. The Met was stunned. The judges had never heard such a magnificent voice at the Auditions of the Air, or anywhere else for that matter. Warren needed work - smoothing out, learning more than five arias, languages etc., so they sent him to Italy for seven months, and he came home knowing five complete roles. His formal debut in a complete opera was on January 13, 1939 (he had  been in a highlights night at the Met two months earlier) in the role of Paolo in Simon Boccanegra. He came to be one of the finest of all Verdi baritones as well as excelling in other roles as well. This week he will sing arias and scenes from La Traviata, Tosca and Il Trovatore. Rosanna Carteri joins him as Violetta, and  Zinka Milanov as Tosca.