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She was a home-grown phenomenon, an operatic soprano trained entirely in the U.S. in an era when most singers developed their craft in Europe, and she made a notable second career after her retirement as a formidable arts administrator and advocate. Fresh Air spoke with her in 1985.

In this week's Heard on the Street, hear cultural sounds from the Smithsonian's annual Folklife Festival.

Majestic and composed, Chen exulted at the end — shaking off his terrible short performance four years ago at the Pyeongchang Olympics and setting him up to win gold after Thursday's free skate.

For the bot-crazed 20-something Hasbro customer-of-old, Michael Bay's latest blow-'em-up extravaganza has it all. For the bot-neutral rest of us ... Still, the picture's going to make a fortune, and will doubtless spawn Sequelbots for years.

Fresh Air's critic says the fifth Harry Potter film trades the last glimmers of childish wonder for a brooding, paranoid darkness, a grainy palette and a series of horrific montages — and it's the best Potter film yet.

Kenneth Turan says director Brad Bird did something audacious — made a major motion picture with a rat for a star. The comedy they've created is imaginative, good-spirited, funny — and brave enough to let the rats be ratlike, even as they charm the audience.

Special-effects magic makes Hasbro's toys enormously engaging, but the humans they're out to destroy keep slowing things down. If this film were a lot shorter, and if it kept a focus on the toys, it would be hard to argue with.

David Edelstein says Sicko is Michael Moore's best film yet, Ratatouille towers like an Eiffel among animated comedies and the latest Die Hard doesn't make you want to — quite.

They're worth a lot of money to the movie studios, but are they worth your time? Hear a roundup of reviews on Dan in Real Life, Saw Four and Rails and Ties.

Director Ang Lee had to cut nine minutes from his racy Lust, Caution before the film could be released in China — and performers as diverse as Gwen Stefani and Ian McKellen have recently been asked to cover up rather than offend local audiences.