Word: ramey
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...Samuel Ramey, opera' s booming superbass, is an American success story, except that most of the drama unfolded in Europe...
...City Opera, he inherited many of Bass-Baritone Norman Treigle's most famous and glamorous roles. Treigle, who died in 1975, was a powerful, athletic singer with a wide following. "It was not easy," says Ramey. "A lot of people in the company would go out of their way to tell me, 'You've got big shoes to fill.' That was all I needed to hear." But Ramey is a better singer than Treigle ever was, and he soon made his mark...
...American basses in James Morris and Paul Plishka; another is that Artistic Director James Levine tends to favor his own discoveries. There was also the perceived stigma of the City Opera; the two companies may be geographical neighbors, but they are artistic strangers. "There were lots of theories," notes Ramey. "One of them was that I was such a big star at City Opera that people wouldn't pay $60 to hear me at the Met when they could go next door...
Today he still devotes much of his time to Europe, although he keeps an apartment in New York City. Ramey enjoys the Continent's greater musical sophistication and adventurous repertoire. "Many singers make a career of doing the same operas over and over," he says. "But I am always looking for the unusual or the rarely performed works." The Paris Robert le Diable, the saga of a man who discovers he is a devil's son, was one such project. Another is Anton Rubinstein's obscure The Demon, whose title role was sung by the great Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin...
...have always enjoyed playing the real sinister, evil characters the most," says Ramey. "The bad guys always have more fun, I guess." Here is a singer who knows how to give the devil his due. And now America is learning...