“Peter Allen, whose nonoperatically light tenor and precise but not pedantic style introduced more than 500 performances for the Metropolitan Opera’s Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts, died on Saturday at his home in Manhattan,” writes James Barron in Sunday’s (10/9) New York Times. “Mr. Allen presided over 29 seasons of broadcasts.” Born Sept. 17, 1920, in Toronto, he grew up in Cleveland, served in the Navy during World War II, and was principal violist in the student orchestra at Ohio State University. In 1947 Allen “moved to New York and became an announcer on WQXR … as well as an actor and a film and television announcer and narrator. During the 1973-74 season he was hired as a standby for Milton Cross, who had been handling the Met broadcasts since the 1930s.… Mr. Cross died on Jan. 3, 1975, a Friday. The next day, Mr. Allen was in the broadcast booth for Rossini’s ‘L’Italiana in Algeri.’ ” He worked as announcer for the “Live from the Met” TV broadcasts starting in 1977, and wrote and narrated two CD sets—“Talking About The Ring” and “Talking About La Traviata,” for the Metropolitan Opera Guild.
Posted October 12, 2016
