{"id":3097,"date":"2026-02-23T15:17:44","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T15:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/3097\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T15:17:44","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T15:17:44","slug":"jose-van-dam-smooth-voiced-belgian-bass-baritone-who-became-the-go-to-toreador-in-carmen-obituary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/3097\/","title":{"rendered":"Jos\u00e9 van Dam, smooth-voiced Belgian bass-baritone who became the go-to toreador in Carmen \u2013 obituary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u200bJos\u00e9 van Dam, who has died aged 85, was a Belgian bass-baritone known for his smooth voice, self-effacing nature and old-school manners; in 1998 he was ennobled by King Albert II of the Belgians as Baron Van Damme.<\/p>\n

He was the \u200bgo-to toreador Escamillo in Bizet\u2019s Carmen, created the title role in Messiaen\u2019s St Francis of Assisi for the Paris Opera in 1983, and the following year tackled the psychological and musical demands of Berg\u2019s \u200bWozzeck in one of his rare appearances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.<\/p>\n

Van Dam not only possessed a resonant bass-baritone voice but was also a versatile actor. Early in his career he was a lithe Don Giovanni; later he gave penetrating portrayals of Verdi\u2019s Philippe II (Don Carlos), Strauss\u2019s Jochanaan (Salome) and Enescu\u2019s Oedipus (Oedipe), all of which he recorded. He was also unsurpassed as M\u00e9phistoph\u00e9l\u00e8s in Berlioz\u2019s La damnation de Faust.<\/p>\n

He sang his first Escamillo in Paris in 1965, returning to the role for his debuts in San Francisco (1970), Covent Garden (1973) with Kiri te Kanawa and Thomas Allen, and New York (1975) with R\u00e9gine Crispin<\/a> as his Carmen. \u201cYou may sing a role 150 times,\u201d he explained, but as far as much of the audience was concerned, \u201cit\u2019s a first.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u200bJos\u00e9 van Dam, who has died aged 85, was a Belgian bass-baritone known for his smooth voice, self-effacing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,2628,2626,2625,2178,2627],"class_list":{"0":"post-3097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-belgium","8":"tag-belgium","9":"tag-covent-garden","10":"tag-culture-obituaries","11":"tag-obituaries","12":"tag-standard","13":"tag-us-content"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}