Samuel Ramey

{{BLP unreferenced section|date=November 2017}}

Ramey graduated from Colby High School in Colby, Kansas in 1960. He studied music in high school and in college at Kansas State University, as well as at Wichita State with Arthur Newman. At Kansas State, he was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity.

Ramey was in the chorus of Don Giovanni in 1963, with Norman Treigle in the title role, while studying with the Central City Opera in Central City, Colorado. After being an apprentice with the Santa Fe Opera in Santa Fe, New Mexico, he worked for an academic publisher in New York City before he had his first breakthrough while at the New York City Opera debuting on March 11, 1973, as Zuniga in the 1875 Bizet opera Carmen. He took over that role as well as the Faustian devils in Gounod's Faust and Boito's Mefistofele, which was vacated by the early death of Treigle.

As his repertoire expanded he worked extensively in European theaters notably in Berlin, Hamburg, London, Paris, Milan, and Vienna in addition to summer festivals in Aix-en-Provence, Glyndebourne, Pesaro, and Salzburg.

In January 1984, Ramey made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in Handel's Rinaldo. He became a fixture at the Teatro alla Scala, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, Vienna State Opera, the Paris Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the New York City Opera, the San Francisco Opera and the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires (Attila, The Rake's Progress, Mefistofele) since then. In July 1985 he was cast as Bertram in the historic revival in Paris of Giacomo Meyerbeer's Robert le diable.

Ramey has sung in Mozart's Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro and, in the bel canto repertoire, in Rossini's Semiramide, The Barber of Seville, Il Turco in Italia, L'italiana in Algeri, and La Gazza Ladra; 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 dramatic legend Damnation of Faust.{{cite web| title=About the Performer: Samuel Ramey| url=https://www.laphil.com/philpedia/samuel-ramey| publisher=Los Angeles Philharmonic| date=March 2000| access-date=September 16, 2017}} Other dramatic roles of his have included Verdi's Nabucco, Don Carlo, I masnadieri, I Lombardi and Jérusalem, as well as Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann (he portrayed all four villains).

In 1990, he sang the role of Joe in Jerome Kern's Show Boat in a concert performance at Avery Fisher Hall with Jerry Hadley and Frederica von Stade.{{cite web| title=Flicka and Friends: From Rossini to Show Boat (1990)| series=Live from Lincoln Center| url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402673/combined| publisher=IMDb| date=April 18, 1990| access-date=September 17, 2017}} A number of previously obscure operas with strong bass/bass-baritone roles have been revived solely for Ramey, such as Verdi's Attila, Rossini's Maometto II and Massenet's Don Quichotte. He provided the voice for The Beast, the main antagonist of the 2014 animated miniseries Over the Garden Wall.{{cite journal| title=The Best Animated TV Shows of 2014| url=https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2014/12/the-10-best-animated-shows-of-2014.html?a=1| first=Shannon M.| last=Houston| date=December 26, 2014| journal=Paste| access-date=September 16, 2017}} In 1996, he gave a concert at New York's Avery Fisher Hall titled "A Date with the Devil" in which he sang 14 arias representing the core of this repertory. He continued to tour with the program throughout the world.{{cite news| title=A Date with the Devil: Samuel Ramey|url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2000/jul/06/artsfeatures4| date=July 5, 2000|first=Tim|last=Ashley|work=The Guardian|location=Manchester, UK|access-date=September 16, 2017}} In 2000, he presented the concert at Munich's Gasteig Concert Hall. The performance was recorded live and was released on compact disc in summer 2002.{{Cite web |title=Samuel Ramey |url=http://www.l2artists.com/samuel-ramey/ |access-date=2024-01-03 |website=L2 Artists |language=en-US}}

He formerly served as a member of the faculty at Roosevelt University's Chicago College of Performing Arts and is currently a distinguished professor of Opera at Wichita State University's School of Music.{{cite press release|url=http://www.wichita.edu/thisis/wsunews/newsrelease/?nid=1852|title=Opera star Sam Ramey to be WSU guest artist in residence|publisher=Wichita State University|date=August 29, 2012|access-date=September 16, 2017}} He was named an inaugural member of the WSU College of Fine Arts Hall of Fame in 2015.{{cite press release| url=http://www.wichita.edu/thisis/stories/story.asp?si=2763| title=College of Fine Arts Hall of Fame selects 12 for inaugural induction class| publisher=Wichita State University| date=March 9, 2015}} He is a national patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.{{citation needed|date=November 2017}} He reprised the title role of "Duke Bluebeard" in Opera Omaha's production of Béla Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle in April 2013 in Omaha, Nebraska.{{cite web| title=Sam Ramey in Bluebeard's Castle| url=http://www.operaomaha.org/blog/samuel-ramey-in-bluebeards-castle/| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905120916/http://www.operaomaha.org/blog/samuel-ramey-in-bluebeards-castle/| url-status=dead| archive-date=September 5, 2015| publisher=Opera Omaha| date=May 18, 2012| access-date=September 16, 2017}}

Ramey has made an exceptionally high number of recordings documenting many of his main operatic roles as well as collections of miscellaneous arias, other classical pieces, and crossover discs of popular American music. He has appeared on television and video productions of the Met's productions of Carmen and Bluebeard's Castle, San Francisco's production of Mefistofele, Glyndebourne's production of The Rake's Progress, and Salzburg's production of Don Giovanni.{{cite web| title=Samuel Ramey: Discography| url=http://www.allmusic.com/artist/samuel-ramey-mn0000598029/discography| publisher=AllMusic| first=Anne| last=Feeney| access-date=September 16, 2017}}

He married his third wife, soprano Lindsey Larsen, on June 29, 2002.{{cite news| title=WEDDINGS; Lindsey Larsen, Samuel Ramey| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/30/style/weddings-lindsey-larsen-samuel-ramey.html|date=June 30, 2002|work=The New York Times|access-date=September 16, 2017}}{{cite web |title=Samuel Ramey Biography |url=https://musicianguide.com/biographies/1608004316/Samuel-Ramey.html |website=Musician Biographies|access-date=24 March 2022}} They have one son.{{Cite web |date=2011-10-06 |title=Interview with Samuel Ramey as he makes his début in his home town |url=https://www.gramilano.com/2011/10/interview-with-samuel-ramey-as-he-makes-his-debut-in-his-home-town/ |access-date=2024-01-03 |website=www.gramilano.com |language=en-GB}}

• Bernstein: On the Town, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, Deutsche Grammophon
• Handel: Messiah, conducted by Andrew Davis, EMI
• Massenet: Chérubin, conducted by Pinchas Steinberg, RCA Victor Red Seal
• Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, conducted by Georg Solti, Decca
• Rossini: Otello, conducted by Jesús López Cobos, Philips
• Rossini: The Rossini Bicentennial Birthday Gala, conducted by Roger Norrington, EMI
• Marilyn Horne: Divas in Song, RCA Victor Red Seal
• A Salute to American Music (Richard Tucker Music Foundation Gala XVI, 1991), conducted by James Conlon, RCA Victor Red Seal
• Mozart: Don Giovanni, conducted by Herbert von Karajan, Deutsche Grammophon

• The Metropolitan Opera Gala 1991, conducted by James Levine, Deutsche Grammophon

{{reflist}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110709081504/http://www.samuelramey.com/biography.html Samuel Ramey's website, samuelramey.com]; retrieved January 25, 2010.
• [http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Ramey-Samuel.htm Ramey with Bach cantata recordings], bach-cantatas.com; retrieved July 25, 2010.
• [http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/r/samuel_ramey/index.html List of "Articles on Samuel Ramey"], nytimes.com; retrieved July 25, 2010.
• Scovell, Jane, Samuel Ramey: American Bass, Baskerville Publishers, 2010; {{ISBN|978-1-880909-76-8}}

• [https://www.youtube.com/@samuelrameybassbehindthecu177/videos Samuel Ramey's Youtube Channel]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM2yUH3E4JA On YouTube, singing THE MESSIAH]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucMtrKHI-AY&t=1h33m15s 73 year-old Samuel Ramey singing the role of Grand Inquisitor in DON CARLO.]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY_bQpmEBc0 Samuel Ramey in the 'Commendatore Scene' from the Metropolitan Opera's 1990 production of Don Giovanni, with Kurt Moll and Ferruccio Furlanetto]

• [http://www.bruceduffie.com/ramey.html Interview with Samuel Ramey], October 22, 1987

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Category:1942 births

Category:Living people

Category:People from Colby, Kansas

Category:Kansas State University alumni

Category:Wichita State University alumni

Category:American operatic bass-baritones

Category:American operatic basses

Category:Grammy Award winners

Category:Singers from Kansas

Category:Classical musicians from Kansas

Category:Roosevelt University faculty

Category:20th-century American male opera singers

Category:21st-century American male opera singers