R.I.P.: Longtime Met Opera Radio Host Peter Allen

Peter Allen

Peter Allen, a broadcaster who for 29 years was the announcer of the Metropolitan Opera’s Saturday matinee radio broadcasts, delivering Wagner and Verdi to millions of listeners beyond the Met’s gilded and glittering New York theater, died Oct. 8 at his home in Manhattan.

He was 96, according to The Washington Post.

Now in their 86th season, the Met’s Saturday radio presentations are billed as the “longest-running continuous classical radio series in American broadcast history.” Their patrons, widely dispersed rather than gathered in a single theater, are famously devoted fans, tuning into the radio no less avidly than the Met’s season subscribers sink into their red velvet seats.

For the first 43 years of Met radio broadcasts, listeners knew very nearly only one announcer — Milton Cross. He inaugurated the series in 1931 and hosted more than 800 subsequent broadcasts.

Cross died of an apparent heart attack on Jan. 3, 1975, while readying himself for the next day’s matinee of Rossini’s “L’Italiana in Algeri.” Mr. Allen, who had trained as Cross’s understudy, took over for that performance and remained for over 500 more. He retired on April 24, 2004, after a performance of Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung,” missing not a single broadcast in nearly three decades.