I don’t know if I’ll ever hear as great a performance as René Pape‘s Gurnemanz.

Cesare Siepi and Giulio Neri give a reference rendition of the Grand Inquisitor scene.

Not much to say here. Legendary bass Mark Reizen was born in the USSR and thus never got to tour much to the west.

Boris Christoff’s Procida (along with Cerquetti’s Elena) lifts Mario Rossi’s RAI Torino Vespri to distinction.

If I must choose a single bass performance, it is still Boris Christoff’s Boris Godunov.

Boris Christoff‘s sound is justly famous, and his vocal splendor is on full display here.

Christopher Purves in Saul – the clarity, the range, the expression, the drama!

No one in my experience both live and on records could swagger, spin out roulades, and ripple through Rossini and Handel like Samuel Ramey.

Before hearing Samuel Ramey as Zaccaria in Nabucco, I had always been more interested in higher voices.

This performance features Samuel Ramey in what I consider one of the most powerful deliveries of this aria on record.

Nobody in my experience has come close to rivaling Samuel Ramey as the shy, lovelorn Englishman Lord Sidney from that first cast.

The great bass Len Dresslar became famous (if unknown) as the voice of the Jolly Green Giant on all those ads that those of us (of a certain age) grew up on

The one, the only Fyodor Chaliapin, singing Massenet’s “Elegie” (with, I believe, a young Piatigorsky on the cello part).

Fyodor Chaliapin is considered one of the greatest basses ever because he combined a dark, flexible, and instantly recognizable bass voice with extraordinary musical intelligence and nuance.

I wanted to make sure Paata Burchuladze gets celebrated in this series.