Episodes

On my recent Edith Mathis episode, I played her singing one of Handel’s Neun deutsche Arien, a group of religious songs set to German texts by pietist poet Berthold Heinrich Brockes. A number of years ago, I created another episode featuring all nine of the arias sung by a magnificent assembly of fine baroque singers. At that time, as a pendant to that episode, I also did a bonus episode with two of the lesser-known of those singers, German sopranos Margot Guilleaume (12 January 1910 – 25 June 2...

Today’s featured artist is, I hope, a name that some of you will at least have heard of: the French mezzo-soprano Germaine Cernay, born Germaine Pointu in Le Havre in 1900 and dying tragically young of an epileptic event in war-torn Paris at the age of only 43. Here is an artist who strikes a balance between poise and white heat, with a voice of exquisite timbre anchored by a flawless technique. Between making her debut at the Opéra-Comique in 1927 and her early retirement from her singing caree...

The rich-voiced and expressive Hungarian mezzo-soprano Júlia Hamari celebrated her 83rd birthday last November, and in honor of that event, I produced an episode which originally appeared only on Patreon, but which I bring to you today as a belated birthday tribute. I’ve put together a program that serves mostly as a tribute to her as a song recitalist (with a nod as well to her matchless accomplishment as a Bach singer). Drawing on both studio and live recordings made over the course of nearly ...

Two of the greatest and most versatile sopranos of the late 20th century, Christiane Eda-Pierre and Teresa Żylis-Gara, both departed within a year of each other in the early 2020s. They also happened to have hyphenated last names and also both bear certain artistic similarities to last week’s featured artist, Edith Mathis (who also pops up today in a cameo!) Unlike Mathis, both Eda-Pierre and Żylis-Gara were criminally underrecorded, so any material featuring these singers is even more welcome. ...

Today a belated memorial tribute to the beloved Swiss soprano Edith Mathis, who died in Salzburg thirteen months ago, two days before her 87th birthday. One of the most highly regarded lyric sopranos of the 1960s and 1970s, Mathis began her career in the late fifties, retiring more than 40 years later in 2001. In between she, armed with a radiant, technically secure voice allied with an understated yet powerful musicianship, set the standard for performance of Baroque music, Mozart, and Lieder, ...

Today’s episode serves numerous purposes: first, as a belated tribute to the great Renata Scotto and in particular her controversial assumption of the title role Vincenzo Bellini’s bel canto masterpiece, Norma. Second, as a memento of International Womens’ Day and Women’s History Month. The remainder of the month will feature various favorite divas in belated Countermelody tributes. In all honesty, this episode also is posted today because I have been quite ill and exhausted upon returning home ...

As a pendant to, and continuation of, my Black History Month 2026 series on Countermelody, I am pleased and honored to present to you the exquisite African American lyric soprano Klesie Kelly, who, as with numerous other singers that we have explored together this month, has made her life, career, and home abroad, in this case, Germany, where she came to pursue post-university studies in Detmold and from there simply put down roots. Though unlike me, Kelly was not born in Milwaukee, she did spen...

Last week I published an episode about Black Pop Singers who emigrated to Europe in the 1950s and 1960s. Most of these gentlemen settled in the German-speaking countries, where there was a ready market for the “otherness” and exoticism that they embodied. The one outlier on that episode was Henry Wright, born in 1933, who in the late 1950s toured Italy with Lionel Hampton’s band and elected to remain there. With a voice as suave and seductive as any of the great crooners of the 1950s and 1960s, ...

As the last official entry in Countermelody’s Black History Month 2026 series, I bring you a potpourri episode that has long been a dream of mine: one dedicated entirely to the Spiritual, that distinctly American musical form that was born in adversity (specifically enslavement, murder, torture, family separation) and yet by a confluence of miracles yielded the most transcendentally beautiful music ever heard on this beleaguered planet. This is no scholarly exegesis of the form (there are others...

As the penultimate episode in my 2026 Black History Month series, I revisit the stories of African American performers who, for a variety of reasons, including seeking to improve their increase their opportunities as artists of color, made their way to Europe in the 1950s and 1960s. Today the focus is on the low-voiced males, baritones, bass-baritones, and basses, in a variety of musical genres, who found success overseas. Surely the most famous of these is the great operatic baritone Lawrence W...

As we hurtle toward the third anniversary (in May already!) of Grace Bumbry’s death, I have had her very much on my mind. It’s true that I consider her greatest achievement to have been as a Liedersängerin. Others opine that her operatic roles as a mezzo (Carmen, Eboli, Amneris among others) represent her at her very finest. There are fewer who focus on her work as a soprano. And yet, when she sang the most taxing roles in that fach, she often revealed a fearlessness, a fortitude, a determinatio...

Last week the opera world joined in unanimous celebration as Leontyne Price celebrated her 99th birthday. Though I’m a trifle late to the party, I do have a Price episode today, and one with a twist, featuring the beloved diva in a repertoire she only occasionally performed: the operas of Richard Strauss. Today let’s imagine ourselves back in the 1960s and early 1970s in an alternate universe, one in which Leontyne Price was one of the leading interpreters of the operas of Richard Strauss. Fortu...

Today’s Black History Month episode serves also as a belated birthday tribute to the exceptional African American soprano Faye Robinson, who was born in Houston on 2 November 1943. Robinson has a voice that transcends genre, encompassing both lyric-coloratura roles at one end and pure dramatic soprano repertoire on the other. In addition, she has been created vocal works by some of the greatest twentieth-century composers, including Michael Tippett, two of whose major vocal works she premiered, ...

Adelaide Hall (1901 – 1993), entertainer extraordinaire, really had it all: voice, talent, beauty, dancing chops, charisma, joie de vivre and sophistication. She was the first Black performer to attain international stardom, even before Joséphine Baker, with whom she shared a number of similarities (though Hall probably had the superior voice). She was the first singer to scat on record; she helped popularize both the Charleston and the Black Bottom and was considered the epitome of the Flapper;...

I first published this episode two and a half years ago in June 2023, in commemoration of the death of the great Tina Turner. As always when I take on such an iconic figure, I try to give a different perspective on the artist in question than one would normally encounter. For this reason, I chose to frame Tina within the context of the many other female pop artists of color who emigrated to Europe and the UK. I have devoted a lot of time, space, and research to the Black opera singers who came h...

To kick off Black History Month 2026 (which, contrary to the current US administration, is still a thing, and not just on Countermelody, either!), I present to you another Zwischenfach singer, the (mezzo-)soprano Inez Matthews. She was born in Ossining, NY on 23 August 1917 and died in the Bronx on 28 March 2004. She is probably most famous for singing the role of Serena on the legendary 1951 (nearly) complete recording of Porgy and Bess (as well as lending her voice to the 1959 Otto Preminger f...

Yesterday, January 29th, was the 101st anniversary of the birth of the Canadian soprano (later mezzo) Lois Marshall. Marshall was in so many ways a unique and treasurable artist. Afflicted with polio as a young child, she spent much of her early life hospitalized. It was there that she discovered the expressive power of her singing voice. Following her training at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Marshall won two prestigious vocal competitions, including the Naumburg, she was taken on...

One of the things about my podcast that brings me the greatest joy is when I can introduce my listeners to a wide range of singers that need to be better-known. Back when I was preparing birthday episodes in October, I chose literally hundreds of tracks that I wanted to share with my listeners. At the time I made use of only a handful of them, so today I have once again dipped into that vat of gorgeous, expressive voices to bring another foretaste of what’s to come on the podcast. There’s a spec...

I’m sure many of you balked when you saw the title of this episode: “But Daniel: Schubert wrote no orchestral songs!” And of course you would be correct. And yet, what about when other composers orchestrate his songs? Therein lies the content of today’s episode. Historical evidence from some of Schubert’s contemporaries and closest associates indicate that he was strict in both tempo and affect in the performance of his Lieder. And yet, in the later 19th century (and beyond) many of his songs we...

Here’s a rare sampling of Countermelody favorite, the refulgent Czech contralto Věra Soukupová, in song repertoire, accompanied by both piano and full orchestra. The featured works are two song cycles of the so-called “late Romantic era,” one by Antonín Dvořák (his 1894 Biblical Songs), and one by Gustav Mahler, his 1901 Kindertotenlieder cycle. The Dvořák recording stems from 1967 and features Czech pianist Ivan Moravec; the Mahler is from 1963 and features the great Czech conductor (and Mahler...

Today’s episode reveals and celebrates the opera queen in me: it’s a program entitled “A Smattering of Sopranos” that features twenty-five different singers who “happen to be” sopranos and whom have not yet been featured in full episodes of the podcast. I love producing these “potpourri” episodes, which allow me to offer a marvelous sampling of singers in a wide-ranging repertoire from French, German, Italian, (and Polish!) opera to religious music to orchestral song to Deutsche Schlager to Lied...

The English contralto Alfreda Hodgson (07 June 1940 – 16 April 1992) has been featured numerous times on Countermelody and when I recently acquired a copy of her 1980 solo recital recording originally released on Pearl Records, I decided that the time was right to do a full episode on this rich-voiced, profoundly musical singer. Though she was equally superb in Bach, Mahler, Handel, and Elgar, I have chosen to focus on her performances of the music of Johannes Brahms, including superb recordings...

In the past I have featured interviews with wonderful guests (including Ira Siff, Janet Williams, Nicholas Tamagna, August Ventura, David Savran, and others), but they have been few and far between. The vast majority of my episodes consist of me talking solo about whatever singer or topic I am presenting on a given day. But today, alongside the new season of Countermelody, I also initiate a new series called “Countermelody Conversations,” in which I interview friends and colleagues in (and out o...

I wanted to start off the year (and the new season of the podcast) with something momentous, and who better to take us there than one of the great operatic artists of the twentieth century: Canadian soprano Teresa Stratas. I have not yet done a full episode on this artist, though she provided me with what was probably my greatest night in the opera house (I get into that in the episode, as well as featuring a rare excerpt of her in that shattering performance). As always with my podcast, I like ...