Mike Harrah
Program HostMike Harrah is host of The Lyric Stage, which airs Sundays at 8 pm.
Mike doesn't know if he saw The Great Caruso 14 times when he was 13 or 13 times when he was 14, but hearing Mario Lanza and all of the other great singers in that movie jump-started an already nascent love of opera. This later led him to study voice and was followed by several seasons singing in the New York City Opera Chorus during the great Beverly Sills/Norman Treigle era in the late 60's and early 70's. He also appeared in regional opera performances in small roles and in the chorus on the same stage as Robert Merrill, James McCracken, Blanche Thebom, Roberta Peters and Placido Domingo – who sang the big roles. To have done this still dazzles him with a "is it really true?" feeling. Chance and fate were smiling.
Mike has thirty years of radio experience include several years of full-time hosting evening and afternoon classical music shows at the public radio station in Toledo, Ohio, and many years here at WWFM on a part-time basis and now hosting The Lyric Stage.
Along the way he has acted in stock, small regional theaters, television industrials and commercials, and made appearances on various network shows. In a parallel life he has taught writing in Ohio and at Temple and Drexel Universities in Philadelphia. He published a young adult novel in the 1980's that HBO turned into a one-hour film.
His favorite non-operatic musical works include lots of Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Mahler's Third Symphony. He still loves to hear Mario Lanza sing. His gift of song and his sound make him forget about any flaws in phrasing and technique.
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What did you do when you were eleven years old?
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This week we have selections from Giordano's Madame Sans-Gens. In 1999, near the end of her active singing career, Mirella Freni recorded this live…
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Luisa Miller is one of the last opera of Giuseppe Verdi's early period, a time in his life he called his galley years, a time of development that led to…
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This week we have selctions from Arabella, by Richard Strauss, with the libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal.Arabella premiered in 1933, and the story has…
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Luciano Pavarotti's legacy as one of the finest and most affecting singers of the twentieth century is on display this week on The Lyric Stage, as he…
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Antonio Vivaldi claimed to have written 94 operas but only about 50 have been identified and only 16 of those are complete. They were influential and…
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On October 27 at 8 PM contemporaries Antonio Caldera and George Frederic Handel share The Lyric Stage. First a one act from 1734 by Caldara, Il giuoco del…
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In late 1995, engineers and producers sat down with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf at the Abbey Road studios of EMI in London, to remaster her 1956 recording of…
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Mozart enjoyed great popularity in Prague beginning with performances of The Abduction from the Seraglio in 1783 at the National Theater, the opera house…