Tenor

For me, it all began with some disgruntled opera fans in Milan. Last month, tenor Roberto Alagna made news when he abandoned a performance of Verdi's Aida at La Scala, the celebrated opera house, after being booed. Frustrated that I could only read about it, I remembered YouTube, the Internet site that gave us the "macaca" heard 'round the world - when Virginia Sen. George Allen tossed out that ill-considered word during the re-election campaign he ultimately lost. I had never explored YouTube before, assuming that it was just for a much, um, younger crowd.

LANDOVER -- In their final debate as campaign rivals, U.S. Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin and former NAACP chief Kweisi Mfume fielded questions yesterday ranging from gay marriage to genocide in Sudan, appearing cordial and energized as they head into the final weekend before Tuesday's Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. The two spoke at a forum held by the Collective Banking Group, a coalition of churches in the Prince George's County area. Appearing before more than 50 mostly black pastors and religious leaders, Mfume seized on religious references, casting himself as the candidate who would give a voice to the forgotten.

Very tall, very thin, very gifted - and prone to very animated behavior onstage - English tenor Ian Bostridge has become one the world's most-respected vocal artists over the past dozen or so years. No one on the scene today burrows more deeply into the genre known as lieder (German art songs) or extracts more compelling insights in the process. There's a keen intellect at work in everything Bostridge does, as well as a richly poetic streak that gives his music-making a rare beauty.

In mid-1830s' Paris, the music world heard a totally unexpected sound from a human voice, which, the story goes, Rossini likened to "the squawk of a capon having its throat cut." But soon enough, audiences couldn't get enough of that sound, and it still heats up audiences today: The tenor's high C. The money note. Produced not by falsetto, but full-throttle from the chest, a technique first credited to Gilbert Duprez. The Italian Girl in Algiers Performances are at 7 tonight and 7:30 p.m. Thursday, with five more performances through June 3 at the Kennedy Center, Virginia and New Hampshire avenues, Northwest.

How's this for a resume? Studied history and philosophy at Cambridge and Oxford and earned a doctorate at the latter. Wrote a book about the effects of witchcraft on English life 1650-1750. Became one of the world's leading classical singers. That's Ian Bostridge, the extraordinary English tenor who moved from academic pursuits to music about 15 years ago and quickly earned admiration for the distinctive timbre of his light, reedy voice and the unusual interpretive depth of his singing, especially in the German song repertoire called lieder.

On May 7, 2006, DR. KENNETH ROBERT TENORE, of California, MD; the beloved brother of Elizabeth J. Tenore, Louis J. Tenore and the late Lillian Tenore; devoted uncle of Louis J. Tenore, Jr. Friends may call at the RAUSCH Funeral Home, P.A., 4405 Broomes Island Rd., Port Republic, MD on Thursday, from 7 to 9 P.M. A Mass of Christian burial will be offered on Friday May 12, 2006, 1:00 P.M, at Our lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church, Solomons, MD. Interment private....

Kenneth Tenore, a coastal ecologist who was a proponent of environmental ethics, died of acute pancreatitis Sunday at University of Maryland Medical Center. He was 63 and a resident of Hollywood in St. Mary's County. For the past two decades, until he stepped down last year, Dr. Tenore had been director of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science's Chesapeake Biological Laboratory on Solomons Island. He was an expert on decaying bay grasses and their role in feeding crabs and marine worms.

Operagoers see just about anything on stage these days: every imaginable (or unimaginable) costume, deftly crafted set designs that may or may not relate to the plot, nifty lighting tricks, video projections, the inevitable wave of dry-ice fog, occasional livestock. But one sight remains exceedingly rare: a black tenor in a leading role from the standard repertoire. Coming up Three Mo' Tenors: 7 p.m. today at James Weldon Johnson Auditorium, Coppin State University, 2500 W. North Ave. Tickets are $45 and $75. Call 410-951-3847 or visit ticketmaster.

It's widely believed that the long and noble history of star-filled, big-budget, studio-made opera recordings is effectively coming to an end with the release this week of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde from EMI Classics. If so, the finale couldn't be much more satisfying. That the indestructible tenor Placido Domingo is singing the famously tough role of Tristan, complete, for the first time - the recording sessions in London wrapped up last January, a few weeks before he turned 64 - makes the release instantly newsworthy.

There may never be another three operatic tenors packing the combined vocal and star power of Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras, but there are at least three highly marketable singers who have demonstrated an exceptional ability to stir the public. Call them the poperatic tenors. Heading the list of these mass-appeal vocalists, who cross back and forth between classical and pop idioms easily and who generate unusually effusive fans, is Andrea Bocelli. The blind Italian singer soared to fame and fortune in the 1990s, given an extra boost by heavy exposure on American public television.