THE Romanian dramatic tenor Ludovic Spiess made a good career in the leading opera houses of Europe. He was born in Cluj in Transylvania and was trained at the Bucharest Music Academy. Having made a local debut as the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto in 1962, he sang operetta for three years in Bucharest. Then in 1965-66 he went to study in Milan with Antonio Narducci.
In 1966 he made what he always regarded as his proper debut in Bucharest as Cavaradossi in Tosca, but it was his becoming a prizewinner at a competition in s’Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, that launched him on an international career.
Having caught the ear of Herbert von Karajan, Spiess was invited to Salzburg in 1967 where he sang Dimitri in the Rimsky-Korsakov version of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. In the same year he made a success at the Vienna State Opera in the title role in Smetana’s Dalibor conducted by Josef Krips. He was a successful Calaf in Turandot at the Verona arena in 1969, and the following year made his La Scala debut in the same part.
In 1971 Spiess was contracted by the Metropolitan Opera, New York, where he sang Manrico in Il trovatore. He also undertook Florestan in Fidelio and Canio in Pagliacci, but it was a period when the Met could also call on Vickers, Corelli and Tucker in such parts, not to mention the young Domingo, and this proved to be the extent of Spiess’s Met appearances.
In 1992-93 Spiess served briefly as Minister of Culture in Romania after the fall of the Communist Government.
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Spiess’s voice was a solid. serviceable tenor with a good clear top, though a rather wiry timbre, which enabled him to pierce the heaviest orchestration.
Ludovic Spiess, operatic tenor, was born on May 13, 1938. He died on January 28, 2006, aged 67.