Metropolitan Opera

Florence Kirk Keppel, a lyric soprano who went from New York's Metropolitan Opera to teaching and performing in Carroll County, died Sunday of Alzheimer's disease at Carroll Lutheran Village in Westminster.Mrs. Keppel, who sang under her maiden name, Florence Kirk, had lived in Carroll County since 1954. She was 90.She was raised in Philadelphia's Germantown, earned a bachelor's degree in music and education from the University of Pennsylvania in 1931 and studied operatic performance at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music.

The calendar year is only half over, but the 1998-1999 classical music concert season is completely finished. I have seen some impressive musical theater performances this past season -- among them a beautifully cast "Norma" (Baltimore Opera Company) and an unbeatable troika of Russian operas, Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov" (the Washington Opera), "Khovanschina" (New York's Metropolitan Opera) and Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" (Baltimore Opera).In some respects, however, the production that impressed me most was a performance early in June of Cole Porter's "Anything Goes" in Boston.

1945: Copland's "Appalachian Spring"1955: Marian Anderson sings at Metropolitan Opera1956: H.L. Mencken dies

Two great artists from the same time and country always invite comparison. This is as true in music as other fields. Thus we compare (as well as pair) Bach and Handel, Mozart and Haydn, Wagner and Brahms, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, and tantalize ourselves with desert- island thoughts about which of the two we would take, if we could only have one.Such considerations were inspired this season by productions of the two greatest operas by Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky. In less than two months, there have been productions of Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov" (Washington Opera)

Dr. Edmund Klein,77, who pioneered the treatment of certain skin cancers with topical chemicals, died July 24 in Buffalo, N.Y. Dr. Klein was among the first to recognize the need for nonsurgical therapies for superficial skin cancer like that arising from prolonged exposure to the sun. He also advanced the use of immunotherapy, in which agents are applied to stimulate the immune system, enabling the body to fend off tumors. His work was honored with a Clinical Research Award from the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation in 1972.

After 20 years as president of Maryland Citizens for the Arts, Sue Hess last week announced that she is retiring in June.Hess, as leader of the statewide advocacy group, has worked cheerfully and relentlessly to ensure that state and federal governments continue to fund the arts. The organization, which has 600 members and a data base of 10,000 names of supporters whom it routinely rallies, will be headed by Mary Toth, who was named executive director last year.Beginning in June, "I'm going to be on the other side," says Hess, who will continue to sit on the group's board.

NEW YORK -- The Kirov Opera's production of Tchaikovsky's "Mazeppa" Friday evening -- the third of four Russian operas presented by the St. Petersburg company in its three-week residence at the Metropolitan Opera -- raised some questions about the standard operatic repertory in the West.We Westerners pride ourselves on our taste, cultivation and sophistication. But we listen season after season to the same "Bohemes," "Traviatas" and "Dutchmen" -- some of them masterpieces, some not -- and, for the most part, are utterly unfamiliar with an opera as great as "Mazeppa."

A story about Herbert von Karajan, when the German maestro was simultaneously music director of orchestras in London, Berlin, Paris and Vienna, has him hailing a cab in front of Carnegie Hall."

The Baltimore Opera Company's 1998-1999 season will include Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana" and Leoncavallo's "I Pagliacci," the company has announced.The two operas, which open the 48th season in October, will be performed together each night, in a new co-production with Opera Seville designed and directed by Roberto Lagana.Starring are Ghena Dimitrova, Paul Lyon, Elena Filipova, Gegam Grigorian and Jon Fredric West.In November, there will be a new production of Bellini's "Norma" with sets and costumes by the Argentinean team of Anibal Lapiz and Roberto Oswald.

The opera "Carmen," like the drama "Macbeth," has a well-earned reputation as an unlucky vehicle for the actors and singers who dare perform it.Superstitious actors often refer to the Shakespearean drama as simply "the Scottish play," afraid that mentioning its name could somehow summon the demons of misfortune.Writer Judith Green in an article in The Sun last week provided voluminous examples of how "Carmen" may be the musical counterpart of "Macbeth."On opening night of the Baltimore Opera Company's production of "Carmen" at the Lyric Theater several weeks ago, mezzo Irina Mishura fell as her spike heels slid out from under her on the raked stage.

PAUL "DUKE" HOGUE, 69 Cincinnati, Baltimore basketball star Paul "Duke" Hogue, a star center on the University of Cincinnati's back-to-back national championship basketball teams, died Monday in Cincinnati of heart and kidney failure, said Patti Hogue, his wife of 43 years. The 6-foot-9-inch center helped lead the Bearcats to NCAA championships in 1961 and 1962, both times defeating Jerry Lucas-led Ohio State squads in the title games. Mr. Hogue was chosen the most outstanding player in the 1962 NCAA tournament.

News of Annapolis baritone Jason Stearns' Metropolitan Opera debut gave some Annapolis Opera folks incentive last October to plan a trip to New York City to offer support recently in his role as Monterone in Verdi's Rigoletto. Former Annapolis Opera president Leah Solat coordinated plans and board member David Stern arranged bus transportation and lodging for the group for Stearns' April 1 debut. Stern also arranged for the group to take a 2 1/2 -hour backstage tour of the Met on the same day. Stearns lives in Annapolis with his wife, Suzanne, who also had a singing career and continues to give voice lessons, as does Jason when time allows.

"Everyone abhors me," sings one of history's most notoriously cruel women early on in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia, "and yet I wasn't born for such a sad fate." That may not be enough to make her a totally sympathetic character, especially since she does a whole lot of poisoning in the last scene. But Renee Fleming offers a valiant, persuasive portrayal of the conflicted Lucrezia in Washington National Opera's new production of this rarely staged work, a production that yielded dynamic musical and visual results on opening night at the Kennedy Center.

NEW YORK --"Whatever the noblest does, that, too, will others do; the standard that he sets all the world will follow." If you go Satyagraha will be performed five more times through May 1 at the Metropolitan Opera. Call 212-362-6000 or go to metoperafamily.org/metopera.

At the opening event of Annapolis Opera's 35th anniversary season, President Leah Solat announced that it also was marking the start of the 25th season for the company's artistic director, Ronald J. Gretz. Her remark inspired me to delve into the history of the company, with the help of Jean Jackson, who began the first of three terms as president when Gretz was chosen as director in 1983. The opera was founded in 1972 when Martha Wright brought The Medium to the Annapolis Hilton, followed by The Beggar's Opera at the Naval Academy and Madama Butterfly at St. John's College's Key Auditorium.

Harry Kulp, an accountant and longtime executive director of a Baltimore burial society, died of heart failure Tuesday at Sinai Hospital. The longtime Randallstown resident was 76. Mr. Kulp was born in Frankfurt, Germany, and was 9 years old when he came to Baltimore with his family to escape the rise of Nazism in his homeland. Raised on Whitelock Street, he was a 1949 graduate of Polytechnic Institute and earned an accounting degree from the now-closed Baltimore Institute. Mr. Kulp, who had not retired, was the owner of an accounting business in Randallstown.

Reba M.W. Gershman, a retired occupational therapist, died of kidney failure Saturday at her Columbia home. She was 71. Reba Mary Wright was born and raised in Oak Park, Ill., and earned her bachelor's degree in occupational therapy from the University of Illinois in 1958. She began her career that year as a therapist with the Navy Medical Corps in Norfolk, Va., and later worked at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington. In the mid-1960s, she joined the staff of Spring Grove State Hospital and in 1969 began working at the state hospital at Crownsville.

It took just 24 days to compose. Mozart paid it the ultimate compliment by rewriting it his way, complete with clarinets and French horns. And while it has become the prime musical staple of the Christmas season, most of the work is a commentary on the death and resurrection of Jesus, not on the circumstances of his birth. I refer, of course, to Messiah, the much-loved oratorio composed by George Frederick Handel in 1741 and premiered in Dublin, Ireland, in the spring of the following year.

William Kenneth Lester, a former box company manager and thoroughbred breeder and owner, died of pneumonia May 7 at Anne Arundel Medical Center. The Annapolis resident was 84. Mr. Lester was born in Baltimore and raised on West Franklin Street. He graduated in 1937 from City College, where he had been sports editor of the school newspaper. He also was a freelance sports writer for The Sun in the early 1940s. He briefly served in the Army during World War II until being discharged because of a back injury.

Worthy causes are bringing some high-wattage vocal artists to the area this weekend. On Friday, celebrated bass-baritone James Morris headlines a lineup of Metropolitan Opera soloists and choristers in a multiple sclerosis fund raiser; on Sunday, he'll give a recital to benefit a boys' camp. Having just finished several grueling weeks as head god Wotan in Wagner's Ring Cycle at the Met, Morris could be off fishing. Instead, he's facing back-to-back concerts. "They're good causes," he says.