Artist Info: Mario Chamlee

American tenor, born Archer Ragland Cholmondeley, who was a product of the University of Southern California. His Met debut took place in 1922 as Cavaradossi, and he sang there regularly until 1939. He had a beautiful, resonant voice with a peculiarly plaintive, somewhat nasal timbre. His range was decent (to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, he left us only one recorded high C, a very nice 1922 "Salut, demeure chaste et pure"), and appears to have been used well, as he never sounds forced or taxed in his recordings. [read more...]