CDs:
Gaetono Donizetti: La Fille du Regiment (Sutherland, Pavarotti, with Bonynge conducting)
Johann Strauss II: Die Fledermaus (Schwarzkopf, Gedda, with von Karajan conducting)

My father was not particularly fond of New Year's Eve, regarding it as something of a false holiday. The writer Eda LeShan, obviously of like mind, boiled it down to one beautiful phrase: "There's no law that says you have to pay homage to the calendar." But thanks to an evil combination of advertising and movies, New Year's Eve remains in the popular imagination a night of impossibly high expectations of romance and glamour, or at least a half-decent party.

Well, even if you are spending New Year's Eve in your bathrobe and doing the crossword puzzle, the least you can offer yourself is as many happy and memorable moments the ticking clock will allow.

Which brings me to my two year-end selections, neither of them new, but both perfectly in the hopeful and forgiving spirit of the holiday, and guaranteed to leave a smile on your face.

The first is a recording I grew up on: the Joan Sutherland-Luciano Pavarotti teaming on La Fille du Regiment (The Daughter of the Regiment). It's quite startling to pick up the CD and hear the tenor early in his career, and in such a demanding part. The natural beauty of the voice serves the role of Tonio well and provides a worthy match to Sutherland's performance as Marie.

As for the story, let's just say it's the tale of a young woman with the heart of a soldier -- well, make that the hearts of a whole regiment of soldiers -- and what happens when the demands of love and duty conflict. Expect a happy ending and lots of showy vocal passages.

If Viennese party animals are more your speed, consider the festivities of Die Fledermaus (The Bat), an operetta as much a New Year's tradition as "The Radetzky March" or "On the Beautiful Blue Danube" and every bit as likely to inspire tapping toes.

Die Fledermaus is a sparkling holiday farce where everyone -- husband, wife, best friend, servant -- has a secret. The champagne flows, the lies are told, identities concealed, flirtations commenced, and everybody winds up in jail -- sort of like the denouement of Bringing Up Baby.

Depending on the production, Die Fledermaus may contain cross-dressing. Do you need a man or a mezzo to sing Prince Orlofsky? Discuss.

If you go with the classic EMI recording conducted by von Karajan, you will be rewarded with the delightful pairing of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Nicolai Gedda. Rita Streich's delicious turn in the role of the maid Adele also deserves applause, or perhaps...

"A toast, a toast, a toast..."

Happy New Year.

CDs:

• Georg Ratzinger/Regensburger Domspatzen: Weihnachtskonzert


• Anne Sofie von Otter and Bengt Forsberg: Noël


• Anonymous 4: Christmas Music from Medieval Hungary


• Felicity Lott, Gabriel Woolf, Joyful Company of Singers: Plum Pudding

To paraphrase the late Jean Shepherd, the boom has been lowered, and we are under it. Word has come that through the combined efforts of Dan Snyder and Bonneville International, the D.C. area's very last classical music station has been targeted for elimination.

After reading that news in The Washington Post, it became my Christmas wish that the full Dickensian array of spirits and ghosts, chains rattling, fingers pointing, and voices booming, would descend upon Snyder and the Bonneville executives. Covetous old sinners now inhabit something other than drafty Victorian counting houses, and we can only hope there's still time for redemption.

So what recourse do we have, aside from browsing in the CD aisle, gluing ourselves to the listening station, and waiting for divine intervention in the broadcast world?

Over the weekends and in the mornings I sneak a look at Classic Arts Showcase on MCPS Instructional TV. It's neither a guilty pleasure nor eat-your-vegetables viewing, just good clips of classical music performances, as well as jazz, dance, film, animation, and much more. If you want to see Jascha Heifetz in action, catch Alfred Drake singing selections from Kismet with Doretta Morrow, or hear more recent performances from Bryn Terfel or Evgeny Kissin, this is the place to do it. And those Zbig Rybczynski films (set to selections from Chopin, Ravel, and Rossini, among others) will have you wondering who slipped something into your coffee.

If you're looking for some seasonal music to see you through the siege, here are some of the latest options.

Anne Sofie von Otter, I'm pleased to report, has released another Christmas album, Noel, and the even better news is that it's definitely not a perfunctory, dutiful march through all the usual titles in your Christmas collection. Von Otter is nothing if not a singer with heart and versatility, and I can promise you that she brings tenderness and joy to the celebration, to say nothing of well-chosen material.

Noel is a delightfully international affair, showcasing works from Chaminade, Cornelius, Grieg, Reger, Sibelius, and others, and offering evidence of von Otter's ease with multiple languages. Need I mention that the Swedish mezzo provides especially beguiling performances of Scandinavian works for the season?

As always, von Otter's voice is rich and engaging, her diction blessedly clear. She is joined by long-time accompanist Forsberg, who performs solo piano selections between the vocal tracks.

If you choose to take home Plum Pudding, expect a multi-course banquet, not merely dessert. It's a uniquely atmospheric taste of Christmas in the United Kingdom. Interspersed with traditional carols, Renaissance polyphony, and other musical tracks are poems and dramatic readings, including selections from T.S. Eliot, Laurie Lee, Dylan Thomas, and an honest-to-goodness medieval mystery play. Truly a special delight for the season.

And I would be remiss in my duties as an Olssonoid, an early music fan, and, most importantly, a Hungarian-American if I didn't remind our readers that Olsson's is featuring a bit of inspiration from early music vocal ensemble Anonymous 4: Christmas Music from Medieval Hungary. This particular album was originally issued under the title A Star in the East and features true rarities: Hungarian liturgical chant for the Advent and Christmas seasons, music that was literally rescued from annihilation while iconoclastic forces were laying waste to Hungarian culture.

Some things never change, do they?

Turning from heavenly female voices to similarly inspired masculine ones, you might also consider Weihtnachtskonzert (Christmas Concert) by the Regensburger Domspatzen, the world-famous cathedral choir comprised of young men and boys, under the direction of Georg Ratzinger. If that name rings a bell, it's because Georg's kid brother is Pope Benedict XVI.

The choir is known for its performances of the classical canon, and the program for this album naturally includes works by Gruber, Praetorius, and others -- music to delight the heart of anyone who ever spent Advent and Christmas in Bavaria. From the first notes of "Vom Himmel hoch, da komm' ich her" or "Es ist ein' Ros' entsprungen," you'll feel yourself transported to a medieval cathedral and worshipful celebration.

However you spend the coming days, may it be peaceful, may it be joyous, and may it include music that lifts your spirits.

DVDs:

The Lion in Winter

The Man Who Came to Dinner

Holiday

First of all, confession time: My name is Cate, and I am a Christmas movie addict.

"Hi, Cate!"

Seriously, the list of perpetually watchable films with a Christmas theme or subplot is long and impressive. It's extremely difficult to pass up a chance to watch White Christmas, Miracle on 34th Street, or It's a Wonderful Life.

Our holiday heroes and heroines, however, more often than not find themselves in some very dark territory indeed, all those festive settings notwithstanding. Unsettling themes stretch from the mundane to the cataclysmic, ranging from greedy kids to full-scale domestic meltdown. Look at Richard Curtis's Love Actually or Billy Wilder's The Apartment, for example. Merry Christmas indeed!

Here are three holiday films, all focused on dysfunctional families, all based on stage plays, all witty and memorable:

There's The Man Who Came to Dinner, an inspired bit of mayhem showcasing Monty Woolley at his nasty best as an egotistical radio star who commandeers an entire household in the service of his holiday broadcast. By the time his mission is complete, he's fomented filial rebellion, unleashed Jimmy Durante on an unsuspecting womankind, and even created his own March of the Penguins -- and in Ohio, no less. Family values take it on the chin, and so do more than a few other ideals.

The film is based on a stage work by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, but the screenwriters were the legendary twins Philip and Julius Epstein, two heaven-sent talents who aided and abetted much Hollywood magic back in the day.

The perfect supporting cast includes Billie Burke, Mary Wickes, and Bette Davis, the latter in a real departure from her typical role as martyr or man-eater.

Then there's The Lion in Winter, which provides a nice degree of perspective for anyone nervous about awkward discussions or icy silence at the holiday dinner table. This talky and eminently quotable film, which has provided my sister-in-law ample reason to hone that Katharine Hepburn imitation over the years, imagines one nightmarish but extremely entertaining Christmas with Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II, their sons, and current and erstwhile lovers and hangers-on. The themes were jaw-droppingly shocking when I saw it back at university, though now they'd barely cause a ripple in our more jaded society. Still, it's good, nasty fun for anyone who regards the holidays as an obstacle course, not a chance to nestle in the bosom of the family.

Hepburn, as the influential and indomitable Eleanor, has a more than worthy sparring partner in Peter O'Toole, who brings considerable masculine power to the role of a king who is both cunning and vulnerable.

Oh, and a complete unknown was cast in the pivotal role of their eldest son, Richard the Lionhearted: Anthony Hopkins, fresh from the British stage.

And speaking of family, don't miss the unsung classic Holiday, yet another of those divine Cary Grant-Katharine Hepburn pairings from the golden age of Hollywood. Here Grant is a self-made man who finds himself engaged to an heiress. In the midst of the holiday social whirl with his future in-laws, however, he discovers he's just entered a gilded cage of rigid expectations and family conformity. Will he embrace the confinement or stage a revolution? Stay tuned.

The supporting cast includes Lew Ayres, a real scene-stealer as Hepburn's perpetually pickled brother, and Edward Everett Horton, whom baby boomers will remember as the narrator of "Fractured Fairy Tales" on the old Rocky and Bullwinkle show.

Merry Christmas, a joyous Hanukkah, happy Kwanzaa. And for 2007, let's take our motto from Jack Lemmon's neighbor in The Apartment: Be a mensch.

Homage: The Age of the Diva
Renee Fleming, soprano
Valery Gergiev conducting the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra

Recently I read of the passing of an operatic baritone with a familiar name, though his career had quite unjustly missed my attention: Robert McFerrin Sr. If the name stirs up additional associations, perhaps it's because Mr. McFerrin's son is one Bobby McFerrin, sometime collaborator with cellists and conductors, and one-man vocal orchestra who is most famous for "Don't Worry, Be Happy."

But if Bobby McFerrin conjures up a particular moment in the '80s, Robert McFerrin Sr. belongs to history itself, for he, like the legendary contralto Marian Anderson, was one of two African-American singers to shatter segregation right on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera. For this let him be remembered and celebrated.

Celebration and musical legacies are also very much on the mind of American soprano Renee Fleming, she of the passionate, expressive voice and radiant stage presence. Ms. Fleming's latest project, Homage: The Age of the Diva, reaches back to the turn of the last century, the age of silent films and the first sound recordings, and the women whose artistry helped bring it all about.

Ah, I can already hear your groans about the overuse of the word "diva." True, it's a term flung about with abandon and applied randomly. But etymologically speaking, a diva is a goddess, and goddesses are very much what Fleming celebrates here. Her pantheon includes Geraldine Farrar, Mary Garden, Maria Jeritza, Lotte Lehmann, and Rosa Ponselle, adored sopranos who inspired composers, dazzled audiences, and premiered an array of musical works.

Fleming's choices here include much that likely has no equal in your collection. Some material, such as the selection from Rimsky-Korsakov's Servilia, has barely been performed at all.

But it is a passionate, sensual journey, from the familiar (Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur and Puccini's Tosca) to the rare (Tchaikovsky's Oprichnik). I was particularly intrigued by Korngold's Die Kathrin, a work I'll have to explore, for obvious reasons. Listen to Fleming sing "Ich soll ihn niemals, niemals mehr sehn" and see if your heart doesn't break.

Valery Gergiev's orchestra provides the rich setting for Fleming's jewel-like voice. This is an album that positively glows.