Alberto Remedios RIP

[makropulos]

I don't think this has been posted here yet. Alberto Remedios died yesterday. His family's facebook page has announced the sad news. I'm sure many others will have happy memories of his singing. Having spent so many of my early opera-going years at ENO, I heard him a lot, including - of course - the Goodall Ring, and much else besides. RIP Alberto Remedios.

[Bryn]

I don't think this has been posted here yet. Alberto Remedios died yesterday. His family's facebook page has announced the sad news. I'm sure many others will have happy memories of his singing. Having spent so many of my early opera-going years at ENO, I heard him a lot, including - of course - the Goodall Ring, and much else besides. RIP Alberto Remedios.

RIP indeed. I have very find memories of his battling through a heavy cold in a very fine performance of Mahler's 8th under the guiding hands of Pierre Boulez at the Proms. A real trooper.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MPV4vU3O18

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

[Stanley Stewart]

Deeply sad to hear about the death of Alberto Remedios. I, too, share special memories of his distinguished Siegfried in the ENO Ring cycle during the 70s, along with his ringing tones as Walter von Stolzing in The Mastersingers. It's only a week or two since I wrote about his Peter Grimes in a concert performance at St John's, Smith Square. Alberto used to visit a CD shop,Orchesography, off St Martin's Lane, after ENO rehearsals, and I remember how we teased him that we would all attend a performance if he guaranteed to wear green plastic wellies! A lovely man. RIP

[subcontrabass]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MPV4vU3O18

https://www.youtube.com/user/rjremedios for more.

[Beef Oven!]

Sad news.

From a Liverpool docker, to our greatest Wagner heldentenor. I cherish my recordings of his performances.

RIP.

[Pulcinella]

Is there any truth in the story I'm sure I've heard that it was Remedios who had been intended as the tenor in Bernstein's West Side Story recording but somehow Carreras got the invitation instead?

I shall dig out my Classics for Pleasure Götterdämmerung highlights disc later: A Gift from the Gods indeed!

[Richard Tarleton]

I saw him in just one Siegfried (in Siegfried) in -? - 1973 - what a voice.

[DracoM]

[Colonel Danby]

I never saw him in concert, unfortunatley, but I still cherish his performance as Mark in the wonderful 'Midsummer Marriage' by Sir Michael Tippett, in the legendary recording on Lyrita by Sir Colin Davis.

RIP Alberto

[cloughie]

The Remedios recording I remember most is the CFP Gotterdamerung with Rita Hunter.
RIP Al

[Beef Oven!]

I never saw him in concert, unfortunatley, but I still cherish his performance as Mark in the wonderful 'Midsummer Marriage' by Sir Michael Tippett, in the legendary recording on Lyrita by Sir Colin Davis.

RIP Alberto

A truly great work, performed marvellously - a very fitting tribute (to both of them).

[slarty]

RIP Alberto, i saw him often, first in 1968 as Walther, at Rosebery Avenue, then onto the Coloseum from 1970 onwards as Siegmund, to Siegfried in 1973 and the complete Ring cycles in August 1977 and his Tristan which was superb, in 1981.
His Walther in The Mastersingers, already mentioned, was magnificent, with Reggie invariably at the helm, but also Mackerras as well.
Those were great days for Sadler's Wells/ENO thanks to Lord Harewood, and Charles Mackerras.
Their joint initiative to build the Ring Cycle under Goodall with their very own house Heldentenor was the making of Alberto, had he not been such a poor learner of the German texts, he would have had a much bigger international career.
However that was our gain as he was amost always available to the ENO.
What a great singer.

[Bert Coules]

I'm late contributing to this thread, thanks to a recent move and curtailed internet access, but not, I hope, too late to add a thought or two.

I woke to this news on Radio 3 on Wednesday morning: a sad way to start the day. I was, and still am, a huge admirer of Remedios: there are some artists with whom it's possible to develop a bond that feels almost personal, even if you've never met them: he was like that for me. He embodied "my" Siegfried as no other performer had before or has since: under Goodall, the character became more lyrical, more sympathetic, more believable, more real, than I'd ever previously known him to be. I was a student in London when I went to the first night of the Blatchley/Byam Shaw/Koltai/Ornbo production at the Coliseum; the next day I bought a ticket for every other performance in the run: I simply couldn't stand the thought of them doing it and my not being there to watch. And to listen, of course: "the singer with a smile in his voice" Remedios was called once, but there was steel there too when it was needed, and astonishing stamina.

I saw him in the main Ring tenor roles (and as Froh at Covent Garden, a curious prelude to his Siegfried there a year later) as well as Tristan, Lohengrin, Walther and Erik. And also as Don José, in various Verdi parts (including a short and not entirely successful one-off run as Otello for WNO), in Tippett and in Berlioz: Faust in The Damnation, but most memorably a last-minute stand-in for an absent Jon Vickers in The Trojans at Covent Garden. And amongst other concerts I have fond memories of a Queen Elizabeth Hall lieder recital when for one song he reached into a pocket and produced a postcard covered in closely-packed writing. "Don't want to get the words wrong," he explained, completely unapologetically.

That sort of naturalness and ease came across on stage, too, and sometimes perhaps a little too much: he needed a firm directorial hand to discipline him into giving his best dramatically. But when that happened, when everything came together, my word there really was no-one like him. I count myself lucky to have been there during his golden days in a company enjoying theirs. Yes, that news was a sad way to start a day.