Met Opera Radio

William Berger grew up in Los Angeles in a bilingual (Spanish and English) and multicultural (Mexican, Italian, and Jewish) home where everyone listened to opera and had strong opinions about it. After spending time during his teen years in various places around the US and Europe, he earned degrees in Latin and Italian literature at the University of California at Santa Cruz. During college, he got his first taste of the opera world at the San Francisco Opera working in various capacities, including merchandising and translating for artists who didn’t speak English. In 1984, Berger moved to New York, worked in architecture/design, taught Romance languages at Baruch College, and became a constant presence in audience of the Metropolitan Opera.

He can’t remember a time when he didn’t write, and has published on a variety of subjects, including architecture, religion, and sports. Berger is the author of several books on opera, including Wagner Without Fear, Verdi With a Vengeance, and Puccini Without Excuses (Vintage Books); and wrote the tribute “Chris De Blasio” in Loss Within Loss: Artists in the Age of AIDS (University of Minnesota Press). He is a frequent lecturer/speaker on opera at a variety of venues, including the Embassy of Finland, the Italian Cultural Institute (New York), the Smithsonian Institute, the Wagner Society of America (New York, Washington, DC, Chicago, and Boston), and the National Museum of Women in the Arts—as well as for the opera companies of Seattle, Houston, Baltimore, and Washington, DC. He was a frequent contributor to the NPR program At the Opera, and was the host of WNYC’s Overnight Music in 2004-2006, which included the weekly show El Salón, focusing on Hispanic issues in classical music.

Berger has worked at the Metropolitan Opera since 2006 as a writer, producer, and on-air commentator with host Margaret Juntwait for the live weeknight broadcasts on Met Opera Radio. He is also a writer and producer for the Metropolitan Opera’s famed Quiz featured as part of its live international Saturday broadcasts. His recent articles have appeared in the publications of the Seattle and Washington DC opera companies and Barcelona’s Theatre de Liceu. He lives in New York’s East Village with Stephen Miller, his partner of 14 years.

Ira Siff is a native New Yorker who grew up on the standing room line at the old Met worshipping the great singers of the time—and, of course, listening to the Met broadcasts. While acquiring a degree in visual arts at Cooper Union, his avid interest in opera led to voice lessons and musical studies, and a debut as a tenor in 1970. Ira performed in many new operas and shows at The New York Shakespeare Festival, Judson Poets’ Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, and other off-Broadway venues, as well as in various cabarets where he did a one-man show featuring spoofs of opera. This led to an interest in blending opera with comedy. In 1981 he founded La Gran Scena Opera Co., and the troupe became an instant hit, their musically-skilled, hilarious-but-affectionate spoofs of opera divas winning great acclaim from the press, public, and music world. Gran Scena toured internationally through 2002 to many of the world’s great opera houses and festivals, including Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Edinburgh Festival, Venice Festival, Munich Festival, Covent Garden Festival, and literally countless others in the US, Great Britain, Europe, South America, and Australia.

Through 2009, Siff continued to perform as Gran Scena’s prima “donna,” Madame Vera, in a solo spin-off entitled The Annual Farewell Recital. It was as Madame Vera that he first teamed up with Margaret Juntwait for two seasons of hilarious mock diva interviews on WNYC’s Weekend Music. He’s taught voice and coached singers on interpretation and style for 40 years in New York, as well as giving master classes in Israel, Italy, Holland, and the US. Siff began stage directing opera in 2000, collaborating since then with such conductors as James Levine, Richard Bonynge, and Christoph Von Dohnanyi. He also lectures on opera and writes for Opera News. Siff has served as on-air commentator with host Margaret Juntwait on the Met’s live international Saturday radio broadcasts since 2007.

Ira continued to perform as Gran Scena’s prima “donna,” Madame Vera, in a solo spin-off of Gran Scena, entitled The Annual Farewell Recital, through 2009. It was as Madame Vera that he first teamed up with Margaret Juntwait, for two seasons of hilarious mock diva interviews on WNYC’s Weekend Music. He has also been teaching voice and coaching singers on interpretation and style for 40 years in New York, as well as giving master classes in Israel, Italy, Holland, and the U.S. Ira began stage directing opera 2000, collaborating since then with such conductors as James Levine, Richard Bonynge, and Christoph Von Dohnanyi. Ira also lectures on opera and writes for Opera News. Ira has served as on-air commentator with host Margaret Juntwait, on the Met’s live, international Saturday radio broadcasts since 2007.

With doctorates in both medicine and music, Debra Lew Harder believes in the power of art to transform people’s lives, and is thrilled to serve as the Metropolitan Opera’s new radio host. Born in Vermont of Korean parents, Harder started playing the piano by ear at age 3. She began formal studies at 6 and made her orchestral debut at 12. When she was 16, she performed and recorded the Ravel G Major Concerto with the World Youth Symphony.

After earning her combined bachelors of science and medical degree from the Northeastern Ohio University College of Medicine, she practiced as an emergency room physician before earning a second doctorate in music from Ohio State University, where she studied with, and served as teaching assistant to, the legendary American virtuoso Earl Wild.

Since then, Harder has pursued a fulfilling career in music as a solo and collaborative pianist, as well as a speaker, broadcaster, and educator. In 2016 she joined the on-air staff of WRTI-FM in Philadelphia, and became the creator, host, and producer of Saturday Morning Classical Coffeehouse. In 2019 she was named midday host, responsible for the station’s peak classical listening time. She interviewed many of the world’s elite conductors and performers for WRTI’s Philadelphia Orchestra broadcasts, and hosted live broadcasts in the performance studio and in public with the station’s community partners.

Harder joined the media team of the Metropolitan Opera in fall of 2021 as the fifth radio host in the company’s 90-year broadcast history. She hosts live broadcasts for SiriusXM, and interviews the great singers, conductors, and creative minds from the world of opera. She will begin hosting the Met’s broadcasts for the Toll Brothers International Radio Network in December of 2021.

A devoted music educator, she is the co-director of Medicine + Music, a co-curricular program at Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. She was on the applied music faculty of Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges for many years. Her commitment to the arts community included service on the boards of the William Appling Singers and Orchestra, the Advancement of Music Committee of the Presser Foundation, and the East Asian Advisory Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Her creative output includes numerous transcriptions for solo piano from the medieval, jazz, orchestral, and non-Western repertoire. When she’s not in New York City, she lives in the Philadelphia suburbs with her husband Tom, where they raised two wonderful daughters. She loves yoga, swimming, hiking, and cooking for friends and family.