How A MET Usher Helped Samuel Ramey Learn "Bluebeard's Castle"

Castle of Secrets: The recording cover with
Samuel Ramey and Éva Marton

"It was fall of 1963, and Samuel Ramey was a young music student at the Municipal University of Wichita, soon to become Wichita State University. He was rummaging through the LP bins at a downtown Wichita music store when he flipped to a recording of Hungarian composer Bela Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle that featured Ramey’s idol, opera star Jerome Hines, singing the title role. Ramey bought the record and took it back to his little apartment, which was near where the Ulrich Museum of Art is now. Ramey, with his deep, young bass-baritone voice, had just begun to develop an interest in opera the previous year. He became obsessed with his new record, a one-hour, psychological opera that told the story of poor, lonely Bluebeard and his new bride, Judith, who insists on seeing what hides behind seven locked doors in his castle. 'I took it back to my place and started playing it and thought, ‘Wow. This is fantastic,'' he said. 'I wrote off to a music store in New York, and they sent me the score.'....When Ramey heads to rehearsal for Bluebeard’s Castle with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra on Monday, he’ll have that score – which still has notes he made to himself in 1963 – with him. He’s saved it for more than 50 years and has used it every time he’s performed the opera, including in 1988 when he sang the title role for a PBS special at New York’s Metropolitan Opera....Before the 1987 album, which Ramey recorded in Budapest with soprano

Ramey at the Wichita Art Museum
with a Dale Chihuly sculpture 
(Photo: Fernando Salazar)

Eva Marton, he remembers spending months working on the lyrics. Hungarian is a beautiful language, he said, but it’s far more difficult than Italian, French or Spanish to learn. Every vowel, he said, can be pronounced three or four different ways. Marton, a Hungary native, offered to help. 'She said, ‘Now there is a guy I worked with at the Met. He’s the head of the ushers, and I’ve already told him about you,'' Ramey said. He took Marton’s advice and found the usher, who agreed to help. Ramey would sit in his office for hours each day, just speaking the text. During the recording process, Ramey remembers with a laugh, a helpful bassoonist would turn around and correct him if he stumbled or give him a thumbs-up if he did well." [Source] See a photo featuring Dale Chihuly's 9,000-pound glasswork set for the production of Bluebeard's Castle after the jump.

Marilyn Horne Celebrates 80th Birthday With Song

Marilyn Horne Song Celebration

Thursday, January 16, 2014 at 7:30 PM

Zankel Hall

"Marilyn Horne, founder and guiding voice of The Song Continues series, has long demonstrated a commitment to nurturing gifted young vocal talent. The legendary songstress is honored on her 80th birthday in a festive evening of songs performed by an all-star lineup of special guest artists." Performers
Samuel Ramey, Host
Frederica von Stade, Host
Barbara Cook, Vocalist
Renée Fleming, Soprano
Brenda Rae, Soprano
Jamie Barton, Mezzo-Soprano
Isabel Leonard, Mezzo-Soprano
David Daniels, Countertenor
Piotr Beczala, Tenor
Lester Lynch, Baritone
Martin Katz, Piano
Warren Jones, Piano
Lee Musiker, Piano
[Source]

Veronese Soprano Cecilia Gasdia To Get Recordings Reissued

"La casa Teldec ripropone poi una ristampa, uscita proprio in questi ultimi giorni dell'anno, di alcune opere in cui appare come interprete il soprano veronese Cecilia Gasdia. È il caso dell'edizione del Faust di Gounod (Teldec 1993) che viene rieditata con la partecipazione di interpreti di fama internazionale: dal tenore Jerry Hadley, a Samuel Ramey, Alexandru Agache, Brigitte Fassbaender, Suzanne Mentzer e dalla direzione di Carlo Rizzi a capo della Welsh National Orchestra. Un giorno di regno di Verdi è invece un video live dal Teatro Regio di Parma del dicembre 1997, per la regia, scene e costumi di Pier Luigi Pizzi, riproposto dalla Hardy Classic, in cui Cecilia Gasdia è a fianco di altri noti cantanti, come Anna Caterina Antonacci, Paolo Coni, Alfonso Antoniozzi e Bruno Praticò nella direzione di Maurizio Benini. Al 1981 appartiene la felice edizione live della verdiana Luisa Miller, con una Cecilia Gasdia ancora fresca della sua strepitosa vittoria al Concorso Callas (1980). L'opera andò in scena al Teatro Fraschini di Pavia, con la direzione di Gianandrea Gavazzeni e i cantanti Nazzareno Antinori, Simone Alaimo, Carlo Desderi, con il Coro e l'Orchestra della Rai nella regia di Filippo Crivelli. L'opera viene ora proposta in Dvd dalla Hardy Classic. E infine di questi giorni anche l'uscita della Aida areniana del giugno 2012 (in versione Blue Ray 3D) con Hui He, Marco Berti, Andrea Ulbrich, Ambrogio Maestri, la direzione di Daniel Oren, per la Opus Arte." [Source]

Joyce DiDonato Markets New Album With Famous Friends

Samuel Ramey To Do Residency at Western Michigan University

Samuel Ramey in his signature role of Attila

"Samuel Ramey, one of the biggest, well-known voices in the opera world will perform and share his knowledge at Western Michigan University next month. For more than three decades Ramey has been considered one of the top leading bass and bass-baritone performers in the world. He's appeared on the biggest stages, including Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Opera, and performed with the best orchestras, including the London Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic. Ramey will undertake a guest residency at the School of Music at WMU from Feb. 3-6, where he'll interact with students via a master class, Q&A session and private coaching, according to a press release from WMU. Ramey will perform a free concert with the University Symphony Orchestra and Collegiate Singers at 3 p.m. Feb. 5 at Miller Auditorium." [Source]

How Much of David Koch's Opera Donation Is Tainted Money?

What you need to know before reading the rest of this post: "The New York State Theater...was renamed the David H. Koch Theater in the fall of 2008 after his $100 million donation." [Source]

Bass Samuel Ramey with the brothers Koch in 2009 at New York
City Opera's former home: The David H. Koch Theater
at Lincoln Center. (Photo: Patrick McMullan)

"In May 2008, a unit of Koch Industries Inc., one of the world’s largest privately held companies, sent Ludmila Egorova-Farines, its newly hired compliance officer and ethics manager, to investigate the management of a subsidiary in Arles in southern France. In less than a week, she discovered that the company had paid bribes to win contracts. 'I uncovered the practices within a few days,” Egorova- Farines says. “They were not hidden at all.' She immediately notified her supervisors in the U.S. A week later, Wichita, Kansas-based Koch Industries dispatched an investigative team to look into her findings, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its November issue. By September of that year, the researchers had found evidence of improper payments to secure contracts in six countries dating back to 2002, authorized by the business director of the company’s Koch-Glitsch affiliate in France. 'Those activities constitute violations of criminal law,' Koch Industries wrote in a Dec. 8, 2008, letter giving details of its findings. The letter was made public in a civil court ruling in France in September 2010; the document has never before been reported by the media. Egorova-Farines wasn’t rewarded for bringing the illicit payments to the company’s attention. Her superiors removed her from the inquiry in August 2008 and fired her in June 2009, calling her incompetent, even after Koch’s investigators substantiated her findings. She sued Koch-Glitsch in France for wrongful termination." [Source]

Is this the house that tainted money helped repair?

"The Bloomberg news investigation into Charles and David Koch has uncovered unlawful and unpatriotic environmental crimes, political donations and business decisions benefitting Iran. There are so many secret sins committed by the Koch brothers no one story can cover it all. But this is the story everyone will be talking about. We've documented many of the Koch brothers' attacks on middle class families, and detailed their commitment to ending public education and resegregating communities. The Koch brothers have smeared us and journalists who investigate their misdeeds. But the totality of evidence is clear: through our Koch Brothers Exposed film series, as well as reports in the New Yorker and now Bloomberg Markets magazine, there exists beyond a shadow of a doubt the Koch brothers' culpability for the onslaught against Social Security, the environment, our public education system and much more. The Koch brothers use their $50 billion personal wealth to distort and shape policy to grow their corporate profits. The Koch brothers hate public service, and work to deny the government and public sector any chance at success and social good. So when a Southern school board began blazing a trail by growing academic achievement in a diverse community, the brothers acted to reverse the community's gains." [Source]

See what else the Koch brothers are up to after the jump.

Metropolitan Opera Guild Luncheon to Honor Marilyn Horne

The lady of the hour: Miss Horne

77th Annual Guild Luncheon
Jackie! Celebrating Marilyn Horne

October 31, 2011 12:15 PMWaldorf-Astoria

The honoree of this year’s Annual Guild Luncheon is the legendary Marilyn Horne. Join us as we salute one of the greatest singers of our time, with appearances by her colleagues and friends, video performances and a vocal tribute by Stephanie Blythe. Guests at the luncheon will include June Ander­son, Lucine Amara, Mar­tina Arroyo, Har­o­lyn Black­well, Judith Ble­gen, Richard Bonynge, Nedda Casei, Barbara Cook, Frank Corsaro, John Corigli­ano, Dwayne Croft, Tyne Daly, Ray­mond Gniewek, Florence Henderson, Martin Katz, Jean Kraft, Shir­ley Love, John Mac­urdy, Spiro Malas, Terrence McNally, Marnie Nixon, Betsy Norden, Roberta Peters, Eve Queler, Samuel Ramey, Regina Res­nik, Ren­ata Scotto, Rita Shane, Bryn Ter­fel, Ben­ita Valente, Deborah Voigt, Fre­der­ica von Stade and Robert White.

TICKETS
Regular Tickets: $250 ($125 tax-deductible)
Benefactor Tickets: $475 ($350 tax-deductible)
President’s Circle Tickets: $750 ($625 tax-deductible)
Benefactor Tables for Ten: $4,750 ($3,500 tax-deductible)
President’s Circle Tables for Ten: $7,500 ($6,000 tax-deductible)

Buy tickets for the event by clicking here.