Metropolitan Opera

If the legend of Faust had not emerged centuries ago, it would surely appear now. In a world obsessed with acquiring untold wealth, conscience-free power over other lives and impossible physical beauty, the notion of selling one's soul to the devil doesn't seem the slightest bit implausible. And if a composer were to turn this diabolical idea into an opera today, the result might be very much like Ferruccio Busoni's "Doktor Faust," which premiered in Germany 75 years ago and received its first Metropolitan Opera performance Monday evening.

It wouldn't be the Christmas season without George Frideric Handel's "Messiah," and in Howard County that means a performance by Columbia Pro Cantare on Sunday, Dec. 2 at 7:30 p.m. at Jim Rouse Theater at Wilde Lake. "Handel's 'Messiah' arrives every December and has a worldwide and fabulously successful run," Columbia Pro Cantare music director Frances Motyca Dawson says about this 18th-century oratorio's widespread appeal. "It has a sense of theater and of great drama. Handel came out of opera, and when he turned to writing oratorios that sense of drama never left him. There is a very special quality to the music that continues to delight the ear, mind and heart.

On a bright Sunday morning in 1985, the Rev. Teresa Martin-Minnich had just concluded a tightly reasoned, intellectual sermon before the sea of well-to-do white faces at Baltimore's Roland Park Presbyterian Church.Then something totally unexpected occurred.A large, strikingly handsome African-American woman with a leonine mane of jet black hair suddenly rose to her feet and, without a trace of self-consciousness, burst into song.Amazing Grace, How sweet the soundThat saved a wretch like me!

In terms of talent, glamour and wide appeal, few opera singers today rank as high as mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves. No wonder there's quite a buzz at the Peabody Conservatory, where Graves will join the voice faculty in the fall. People are still talking about a master class that Graves gave at the conservatory last September. "She didn't know she was auditioning," said Phyllis Bryn-Julson, the distinguished soprano who chairs the voice department. "It was a phenomenal day for the students.

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

The dismissal last week of superstar soprano Kathleen Battle from the Metropolitan Opera Company for "unprofessional conduct" is sure to ignite lively controversy among fiercely partisan devotees. Ms. Battle, 45, is one of the classical music world's biggest stars, right up there with Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo. Observers are rightly comparing her tiff with Met General Manager Joseph Volpe to the famous rift that developed between diva Maria Callas and Met boss Rudolph Bing more than a quarter-century ago.Ms.

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.

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.

ISOLA JONES, singing the lead role of Carmen in her Baltimore Opera debut, has performed the mezzo-soprano role and others 400 times at the Metropolitan Opera. She has sung 10 times in televised operas.John Absalom, tenor, sings Don Jose. Craig Heath Nim, baritone, sings Escamillo. Also new to Baltimore is Enrique Batiz, the conductor of the Baltimore Opera Orchestra. Matthew Latta is the director.

By any standard, Florence Quivar ranks among the greatest and most versatile -- she's as terrific in Mahler as she is in Verdi -- mezzo-sopranos of the last half-century. This wonderful singer -- who is now celebrating the 20th year of her debut at the Metropolitan Opera -- will make a rare Baltimore appearance this Sunday in Morgan State University's Performing Arts Series.Mezzo-soprano Florence Quivar will sing in Murphy Auditorium at Morgan State University at 4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $25; for tickets or further information, call (410)

Four superb singers took to the stage during the Annapolis Opera's "Concert of Stars," welcoming the crowd to the beginning of the company's 38th season. The stellar performer was Annapolis resident and Metropolitan Opera baritone Jason Stearns, who has recently returned from performing in Oslo, Norway. Opening this program, Stearns delivered a compelling rendition of Umberto Giordano's "Nemico della Patria?" from "Andrea Chenier. " Later, the two-season Met performer sang a riveting "Credo in un Dio crudel" from Giuseppe Verdi's "Otello.

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.

Opera buffs around the world were devastated when they learned earlier this year that ChevronTexaco will terminate its sponsorship of the weekly Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts at the end of the 2004 season. As of last week, the Met was still seeking a sponsor for its broadcasts, which cost $7 million annually. The Met first took to the airwaves on Christmas Day in 1931, when listeners nationwide tuned to NBC to hear a performance of Hansel and Gretel. Its narrator, working from a soundproof cage in Box 44 in the grand tier of the old Metropolitan Opera House was Deems Taylor, a critic and composer, who "whispered a running comment into the ears of millions of listeners on both sides of the Atlantic, telling them just what the wicked old witch and the two hungry children were doing and going to do next," reported The Evening Sun. According to a Metropolitan Opera archivist, Taylor, whose commentaries were not very successful, was replaced in 1932 by announcer Milton J. Cross, the former voice of the Chicago Civic Opera.

In terms of talent, glamour and wide appeal, few opera singers today rank as high as mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves. No wonder there's quite a buzz at the Peabody Conservatory, where Graves will join the voice faculty in the fall. People are still talking about a master class that Graves gave at the conservatory last September. "She didn't know she was auditioning," said Phyllis Bryn-Julson, the distinguished soprano who chairs the voice department. "It was a phenomenal day for the students.

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.