Peter Fox Smith
CommentatorPeter was part of VPR from 1977, hosting Saturday Afternoon at the Opera and then A Passion For Opera, until VPR's 40th anniversary in 2017.
Opera had always been one of Peter's passions. As a young boy visiting his paternal grandparents, he was treated to impromptu concerts by touring stars of the Metropolitan Opera performing with his grandmother. He is author of A Passion For Opera: Learning To Love It: The Greatest Masters, Their Greatest Music, released in 2004 by Trafalgar Square Publishing.
As a student at Harvard, Peter's doctoral thesis was on Wagner. An appointment at Dartmouth College allowed him to pursue his three passions: athletics, academics and the arts. He coached Dartmouth's women's cross country running team, taught opera courses to freshmen through master candidates and produced an annual arts concert for many years.
Peter passed away on October 5, 2020, and by his longtime audio engineer Sam Sanders.
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Giving thanks this holiday weekend for the collaboration between W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, we hear excerpts from Iolanthe, possibly the best of鈥� -
Mozart's short opera Bastien und Bastienne was written when he was only 12 years old.Listen Saturday, November 19 at 12 noon. -
We hear music from Henry Purcell's "semi-opera", The Indian Queen, with additional music by his brother, Daniel.Listen Saturday, November 12 at 12 noon.
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We celebrate the November 5, 1494 Birthday of the cobbler-poet Hans Sachs, whom Wagner immortalized in his opera Die Meistersinger. Dietrich鈥� -
We hear the operatic preludes that set the scene for Act I of Pagliacci, Peter Grimes, and G枚tterd盲mmerung.Listen Saturday, October 29 at 12 noon.
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Waltzes by Johann Strauss II are heard in his operetta A Night in Venice, with soloists, the Bregenz Festival Chorus, and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra鈥�
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Join us for the beautiful melodies of Johann Strauss II's Wiener Blut, with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Nicolai Gedda.Listen Saturday, October 15 at 12 noon. -
Francis Poulenc's La voix humaine, with libretto by Jean Cocteau, is preceded by two short 20th century opera tidbits: an orchestral excerpt from Der鈥� -
We mark the September 26, 1898 birthday of George Gershwin with excerpts from the most successful of all American operas, Porgy and Bess.Listen Saturday,鈥� -
We hear excerpts from two French operas: Gounod's Faust, featuring the superb tenor L茅opold Simoneau; and Offenbach's little-known operetta Madame鈥�
