Ramon Vinay

In common with many other heroic tenors, Ramón Vinay began his career as a baritone. After two decades as a leading tenor, he stepped back into the baritone register and continued to sing for several years. Still, it was as a tenore robusto that Vinay earned his status as a major figure in the works of Wagner and in the most strenuous roles of the Italian and French repertories. Recordings of his signature role, Otello, exist with the two great antipodes of the era ending in the mid-'50s: Toscanini and Furtwängler. Although Vinay's singing as sheer vocalism never matched the b...