Cast
José van Dam — Bass-baritone
Program notes
25 years after his first documentary on the bass-baritone José Van Dam, Gérard Corbiau offers audiences a new film, exploring once again the life and times of one of the greatest singers of our time.
Gérard Corbiau follows José Van Dam on his journey from Brussels to Milan and Paris to Matsumoto. “This is our third meeting on camera: after The Master of Music in 1987, after a first portrait filmed 25 years ago that sealed our friendship. It was in 1981, in this same place, with the same mirror.”
Celebrated worldwide, José van Dam is one of today's most honored interpreters of the bass-baritone repertoire. Over the course of his career, he has been heard in the music capitals of Europe, the Americas and Japan, singing under the world's leading conductors. When I was 13 years-old, I used to tell to anyone who asked me that I was going to be an opera singer. I had absolutely no idea of what it meant but I already said it. It was such a natural thing that I have never thought it couldn't really happen. – José Van Dam.