Fri, 24 April 2009
Cari amici, About 40 long years ago, I attended the first rehearsal of Donizetti's "Anna Bolena," at the home of our illustrious maestro and one of my mentors in life, Armen Boyajian. Marisa Galvany (one of her many phony names) was the Bolena (and I loved looking down her throat to see where those phenomenal E flats came from). Then there was this young dude named Sam Ramey, who opened his mouth and out came some of the greatest sounds we ever heard. Gee... maybe he will make it some day, we all exclaimed! Now, as we celebrate Sam's 25th anniversary at the Met, and a 40 year professional career, singing an incredible range of roles and becoming one of the opera icons of our time, we feel so fortunate that he left Kansas to find an "Oz" of magic all over the opera world. I therefore wish to celebrate with you Sam's Met anniversary, and a fabulous career. I still relish those old tapes of our Bartolo/Basilio and am so fortunate I was able to be in on a tiny part of an illustrious career. I recall Sam once telling us about that skinny chain-smoking guy with the enormous voice by the name of Norman Treigle, and how he admired him. Well, they did so many of the same roles (Mefistofele, Boris,Blitch,Escamillo, The Hoffmann villains,Don Giovanni, Figaro,etc.). Happily, Sam Ramey has been able to follow along in this tradition, with so many great performances of a huge number of roles,a remarkable number of recordings, and engagements in every important opera theatre in the opera world. So..a happy 25th Met anniversary to a dear sweet and brilliantly talented guy and all my best to him and to his lovely wife and son (who also has a high F#...and more!) With my sincerest best wishes Charlie
Excerpts are from Italiana,Lombardi,Rinaldo,Attila, Mefistofele, Comte D'Ory, Semiramide,Susannah, South Pacific. (65 min.) |
