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"A swashbuckling Italian tenor [who] exhibits both the voice
and charisma of a crossover star."
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The New York Times
BIOGRAPHY
Michael Amante is the American tenor who can sing it all. Whether
commanding the heroic volleys of Puccini's "Nessun dorma" or melting
the tender phrases of "O Sole Mio", Amante rewrites the book on
anybody's idea of what a tenor can be. The New York Times declared
that this "swashbuckling Italian tenor exhibits both the voice and
charisma of a crossover star," and Tony Bennett has hailed him as "the
new Mario Lanza." Throw in some Jon Bon Jovi, too. Movie-star handsome
and charming, Michael Amante combines an operatic tenor's debonair,
old-world finesse with the sheer adrenalin rush he discovered as a
teenager, when his tenor voice first made itself known soaring over
the sound of metal bands in rock clubs.
Amante has just completed his first recording for Medalist
Entertainment, produced by Phil Ramone and scheduled for release in
June, 2001. Featuring favorite operatic arias from Rigoletto,
Turandot, La Boheme and Aida as well as popular Italian songs such as
"O sole mio" and "Non ti scordar di me," it introduces a soaring new
love song "Ho bisogno d'amore (I Have a Need for Love)" that showcases
the all-American exuberance, the Italian soul and the sheer beauty of
Amante's singing.
Michael Amante grew up as a
second-generation Italian-American in Syracuse, N.Y., one of five
children. As a boy, Amante marveled at how his father could always
sweep his mother off her feet simply by singing to her in a lilting
light tenor voice. It is a lesson he never forgot. "I wanted to do
that," he says, "to make people feel that good." Amante has sung for
Pope John Paul II and for Luciano Pavarotti, for audiences that number
in the thousands and for friends after dinner, in Madame Butterfly in
the opera house and at The Sands in Atlantic City. For him, it is
always about making people feel that good.
Though he began singing in Catholic school when he was 6 - wowing the
nuns who were casting a production of Oliver! - Amante discovered his
serious vocal potential when he was singing in a church choir. The
pure voice had always been there. When he was a teenager, he was in
demand with local rock bands because his natural tenor voice could
easily ride the high notes in cover versions of the killer hits of
Kansas, Foreigner and Journey. But it was the director of the church
choir who pulled him aside and made him listen to a recording of the
legendary Swedish tenor Jussi Bjoerling singing the limpid, haunting
aria "Una furtiva lagrima." Michael Amante knew immediately where he
was headed. Study and careful preparation have given him the classic
Italian tenor voice with a warm and viscerally exciting sound, rising
as high as an F above high C, with the support to deliver what his
friend and mentor Sonny Grasso calls "those boffo notes."
Amante's career has taken him into the opera house and the musical
theater, where he has sung leading roles in La Boheme and Madama
Butterfly, as well as West Side Story, Grease and Jesus Christ
Superstar. But it is singing directly to his audience that brings him
real fulfillment, effortlessly making the connection that makes people
feel "that good." That quest has led Amante from the clubby confines
of New York's Algonquin Hotel to St. Patrick's Cathedral to Shea
Stadium, where he sang the national anthem for the New York Mets
during the team's 2000 playoff games. The son of a tradition that
celebrates singing and musicmaking, he is proud of his popularity with
Italian-American audiences and of his relationship with the Order of
the Sons of Italy and the National Italian American Foundation. Winner
of the Italian Charities' Christopher Columbus Award, the Lione de San
Marco Award for opera, Il Cuore di Carabinieri and the Sergio Franchi
Foundation Award, Amante has serenaded audiences at a wide range of
cultural and charitable events, and he has been featured on NBC's
coverage of New York's Columbus Day parade and on the soundtrack of
the film While My Pretty One Sleeps.
"Whether I'm singing for a party of 10 or an audience of
10,000,"Amante says, "it's always the same - singing is like a prayer.
I love being the tenor in the opera, but it's a very small world. I
want to share this beautiful music with everyone." |
