Tenor

A half-century after his untimely death at the age of 38, celebrated tenor and movie star Mario Lanza is receiving fresh medical attention from a Baltimore doctor who takes a dim view of one of the singer's weight-loss treatments - injections of the urine of pregnant women, a controversial therapy with new followers today. Dr. Philip A. Mackowiak, vice chairman of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and director of the Medical Care Clinical Center at the Veterans Administration Hospital downtown, teamed up with Armando Cesari, Lanza's Australia-based biographer, for an article about the singer's health issues just out in The Pharos, the journal of the medical honorary society Alpha Omega Alpha.

COLLEGE PARK - Who would have imagined that this - an early-season game against an America East foe during a sleepy holiday-season week - could turn into an event? But the fans at Maryland's 83-72 victory over Albany clearly felt they were seeing something special as 7-footer Alex Len made his regular-season debut by hitting his first five shots - four of them dunks - en route to a 14-point, eight-rebound performance. Even with Len on the floor, Maryland (8-3) lost an early 13-point lead and had to hold on at the end. But, at worst, the game marked the fans' introduction to an intriguing - if raw - big man. Len, who has been practicing with the team and was a surprise starter Wednesday night, missed the first 10 games of the season as a penalty for having previously signed with a club overseas.

The Pasadena Theatre Company returns to the Chesapeake Arts Center Studio 194 Theatre to present Ken Ludwig's 1989 Tony Award-winning comedy "Lend Me a Tenor," which opens on Saturday, June 4, for a three-weekend run. This return to Chesapeake Arts Center might be termed a kind of homecoming. During its 32-year history, the Pasadena Theatre Company has performed at several county venues, recently most often at AACC's Pascal Center and Humanities Recital Hall. At a recent rehearsal, PTC President Sharon Steele said, "We are pleased to be back … with our current show and we know 'Lend Me a Tenor' will be a great fit here, where we also hope to do lots of shows.

The Pasadena Theatre Company returns to the Chesapeake Arts Center Studio 194 Theatre to present Ken Ludwig's 1989 Tony Award-winning comedy "Lend Me a Tenor," which opens on Saturday, June 4, for a three-weekend run. This return to Chesapeake Arts Center might be termed a kind of homecoming. During its 32-year history, the Pasadena Theatre Company has performed at several county venues, recently most often at AACC's Pascal Center and Humanities Recital Hall. At a recent rehearsal, PTC President Sharon Steele said, "We are pleased to be back … with our current show and we know 'Lend Me a Tenor' will be a great fit here, where we also hope to do lots of shows.

After what was by all accounts a phenomenal performance Saturday before a crowd of 500,000 in New York's Central Park, opera superstar Luciano Pavarotti is entitled to borrow Mark Twain's legendary retort to the press: "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."The Italian tenor hadn't been pronounced dead, exactly, but much of the reportage concerning him recently has strongly implied his stage career is nearing its end. For an opera singer, that's akin to having one foot in the grave.

The music season could end right now and I wouldn't complain much, because I could bask indefinitely in the afterglow of hearing Ben Heppner sing "Roses of Picardy" Sunday night. The tenor's performance of that wistful song from 1916, the third and final encore in his fabulous recital for the Shriver Hall Concert Series, sent me out into the drizzly air on a rare high. I admit I'm an easy pushover for old ballads like "Roses of Picardy," one of the most beguiling of World War I-era songs, but it takes an uncommon singer to make them sound fresh and substantive today (or to even think of performing them)

A RARE convergence of tenors is turning the closing days of the Metropolitan Opera's 1995-96 season, which ends next weekend, into a frenzy of ticket seeking.The world's two leading active tenors, Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo, have undertaken new roles as, respectively, the title role in ''Andrea Chenier'' and Siegmund in ''Die Walkuere.'' (Jose Carreras, the other of the ''Three Tenors,'' hasn't sung at the Met for years, and little elsewhere except on special occasions, since recovering from leukemia.

Tenors are a passionate breed; many would kill to have a voice with a top like Chris Merritt's.Yesterday afternoon in Shriver Hall when Merritt sang Tonio's first act aria -- the one with no less than eight high C's -- from Donizetti's "Daughter of the Regiment," the tenor nailed those high notes with brilliance, charm and ease. All the more remarkable was that this was the singer's s fourth encore after a long and difficult program of operatic arias in a benefit for the Baltimore Opera Company.

Most theatrical farces these days seem to involve staid British vicars cavorting in their underwear amid countless cases of mistaken identity. Ugh.But when "Il Stupendo," Italy's greatest tenor, came to Cleveland Sept. 9 to sing Verdi's "Otello," and in the process created more mayhem, infidelity and, yes, cases of mistaken identity than you could believe, I laughed as much as anyone in the theater.That's because "Lend Me a Tenor," the Ken Ludwig play currently in production at the Colonial Players of Annapolis, is a witty, hilarious farce that goes well beyond formulaic nonsense to garner its belly laughs.

Since "Lend Me a Tenor" -- the opera-based farce by Washington attorney Ken Ludwig -- tried out for Broadway at the Mechanic Theatre four years ago, the show has found fame and fortune not only in New York, where it garnered seven Tony nominations, but in more than 25 foreign countries.Ludwig has written the screenplay for Columbia Pictures, and the stage play has been translated into 16 languages. By now "Tenor" is fair game for community theaters (Spotlighters produced it last season) and summer stock.

St. Andrew's Church will hold its monthly Community Feast tonight, May 26, from 6 to 8 p.m. This month's menu will be Italian. Proceeds from this dinner will go toward the Alabama tornado relief effort. The meal is donated by Smokin' Hot Catering, and takes place at the church, located at 2892 Route 97, in Glenwood, between the post office and Union Chapel Road. The whole community is welcome to come, so take the night off from cooking! Dine-in or carry-out is available.

Placido Domingo, as usual, is in full multitask mode as he wraps up his 15-year tenure as general director of Washington National Opera. The famed Spanish tenor has seven more performances to sing as Oreste in the company's first-ever production of Gluck's "Iphigenie en Tauride," which opened last Friday. He'll also switch gears to conduct five performances of Donizetti's "Don Pasquale," which opens this Friday. At 70, Domingo could be pursuing an enviable, pampered life of leisure, but that's a thoroughly alien concept to him. Besides, he gives every indication of thriving on packed schedules like the one he has this month in Washington.

Martin Willen, a retired jewelry salesman who made news during World War II when he sang Jewish liturgical music in a captured castle owned by the Nazi propaganda chief, died of heart disease April 22 at Seasons Hospice at Northwest Hospital. He was 96 and lived in Pikesville. Born in Baltimore and raised on Washington and Eden streets, he was the eldest child of Russian immigrants. He attended City College and won a scholarship to the Peabody Conservatory. A tenor, he studied with teacher Frank Bibb.

T he Anne Arundel Community Concert Association brought the Canadian Tenors, performers with wide appeal, to its first concert of 2010. Those who attended the Jan. 6 concert at Severna Park High School expecting a Pavarotti, Domingo and Carreras-like tenor group might initially have been disappointed to hear this quartet, whose repertoire was more popular than operatic. But they were probably won over by the group's program of current international hits. The Canadian Tenors are Fraser Walters, Remigio Pereira, Clifton Murray and Victor Micallef.

A half-century after his untimely death at the age of 38, celebrated tenor and movie star Mario Lanza is receiving fresh medical attention from a Baltimore doctor who takes a dim view of one of the singer's weight-loss treatments - injections of the urine of pregnant women, a controversial therapy with new followers today. Dr. Philip A. Mackowiak, vice chairman of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and director of the Medical Care Clinical Center at the Veterans Administration Hospital downtown, teamed up with Armando Cesari, Lanza's Australia-based biographer, for an article about the singer's health issues just out in The Pharos, the journal of the medical honorary society Alpha Omega Alpha.

Euan Morton always knew he'd been born with a voice that people wanted to listen to. But for years, he overlooked his gift, like an unwanted Christmas present buried in the back of the attic. It was only much later that Morton began to appreciate his supple tenor and the fine things it could bring him, such as a nomination for a Tony Award for creating the role of the young Boy George in the 2003 musical "Taboo." This weekend, Morton's voice is bringing him to Baltimore to headline Center Stage's new cabaret series.

Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera" ("A Masked Ball") has a perfection of shape, an exuberance of spirit and a sheerly Italianate joy in beautiful singing unmatched even by the composer's other middle-period masterpieces. Rarer still among Verdi's operas is that it provides a longer, richer, more rewarding part for tenor than for baritone. The last of these reasons -- though there are others -- makes a compelling case for the Washington Opera's current production of "Ballo," unveiled Saturday at the Kennedy Center's Opera House.

A good farce is like an intricate music box -- the type with lots of movable parts. And, Ken Ludwig's "Lend Me a Tenor" is more like a music box than most since it's about opera. To stretch this metaphor a bit further, at the Spotlighters the music box takes on the added detail of being see-through. That's because the theater's arena staging makes all of the workings visible at all times.Tricky as this may be -- and in this case both the performances and Miriam Bazensky's direction are uneven -- there's also something delightfully fitting about mounting a farce in the round.