The news that opera star Samuel Ramey is coming to campus Tuesday to conduct a voice class for the School of Music, Theatre & Dance has sparked excitement, faculty say.
“Our students will have the opportunity to sing for and talk to the most recorded bass-baritone in history,” says Melody Racine, chair of the voice department and a master teacher in her own right. “This really is the chance of a lifetime for these young singers.”
Ramey is coming to Ann Arbor under the auspices of the Jessye Norman Master Class, named for alumna Norman, an accomplished dramatic soprano and recording artist. The class is scheduled for 7-9:30 p.m. Tuesday at Hill Auditorium. It offers a rare chance to see a master at work as he molds and shapes the voices of the future.
Composers of opera to some degree equate villainy with the bass voice, evidenced in the casting of bass singers to fill villainous roles. Being an excellent bass-baritone singer, Ramey often has been called upon to sing these roles.
His Faust has been called legendary, and also his portrayal of Mephistopheles — the devil to whom Faust sold his soul. The later role was most notably presented in Boito’s “Mefistofele,” which Ramey sang in more than 70 performances in a Robert Carsen production specifically crafted for him.
Ramey also has performed as Berlioz’ devil in “La damnation de Faust,” the sinister Nick Shadow in Stravinsky’s “The Rake’s Progress,” and as all four villains in Offenbach’s “Les Contes d’Hoffmann.”
This performance prompted the New York Post to proclaim, “This is the stuff of which operatic legends are made.”
The master class is open to the public.
