Biography
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Born
28 March 1942 (age 83)
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Born In
Kansas, United States
The American opera singer Samuel Ramey (born March 28, 1942 in Colby, Kansas) is considered one of the finest basso cantante singers of his generation. He is greatly admired for his range and versatility, having both the bel canto technique to sing Handel, Mozart, Rossini, as well as the power to handle the dramatic roles of Verdi and Puccini.
Ramey made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in Handel's Rinaldo in 1984. He has since become a fixture at La Scala, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, Vienna State Opera, the Paris Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the New York City Opera, and the San Francisco Opera.
In the bel canto repertoire, Ramey has excelled in Mozart's Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro and in Rossini's Semiramide, The Barber of Seville, Il Turco in Italia, L'Italiana in Algeri; in Donizetti's Anna Bolena and Lucia di Lammermoor and Bellini's I Puritani.
In the dramatic repertoire, Ramey has been acclaimed for his "Three Devils": Boito's Mefistofele, Gounod's Faust, and Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust. Other dramatic roles have included Verdi's Nabucco, Don Carlo, I Lombardi and Jerusalem and Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann (all four villains).
A number of previously obscure operas with strong bass-baritone roles have been revived solely for Ramey, such as Verdi's Attila, Rossini's Maometto II, and Massenet's Don Quichotte.
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