And regarding the pronunciation of the Siberian baritone's last name, it's actually sort of "easy". Russian is basically an "open" language, meaning that almost all of the syllables which make up their words end in vowel sounds (much like Italian and Spanish). "Hvorostovsky" is an English transliteration of his Russian/Cyrillic, so if you break it up by the syllable, with the vowel "stops"...
Dmi -tri Hvo - ro - stov - sky - Just consider the "v" a vowel too in the third syllable. And, yes, there is a brief, almost guttural exhalation of air before the first "v".
