If you Google “What opera singer has performed the most different roles?” the answer will come up: “Placido Domingo … with his repertoire totaling over 150 different roles as of 2020.” (Domingo, now 85, was essentially banished from working in the United States in 2019 after several alleged victims publicly accused him of sexual harassment that year. His engagements were all canceled, and he resigned as director of the Los Angeles Opera.)

Operatic roles are so difficult physically, mentally, psychologically and on the memory that most famous opera singers have performed no more than 50 different roles. But Ralph Tudisco, a Mt. Airy native, graduate of Chestnut Hill College and founder of the Amici Opera Company, maintains that Domingo’s record of 150 different roles is not even within whispering distance of his own body of work.

“I will perform my 500th role May 31 and June 6 at the Redeemer United Methodist Church, our home base at Cottman and Lawndale,” in Philadelphia’s Burholme neighborhood, Tudisco, 68, told the Local last week. “It is all documented. We will perform ‘Il Piccolo Marat’ (The Little Soldier) by Mascagni. This is the 11th [of Mascagni’s operas] we will have done. We are the only ones who have done all of Verdi operas and the Requiem. That was always my biggest goal. . . . We have done 37 [of Donizetti’s operas]. We have done 11 of the 12 Puccini operas. We couldn’t do the 12th because all the roles are for women.”

One question Tudisco often gets asked is why his name is not in the Guinness Book of World Records. “I did contact them with proof of the record,” he replied, “but they wanted a substantial amount of money to check everything out, and there is no way I could come up with the money they wanted.”

Tudisco started singing at age 2 or 3 in his family’s Ardleigh Street home in Mt. Airy in the house that Connie Mack (owner and manager of the Philadelphia A’s baseball team, which is now the Oakland A’s) had lived in. Most of his operatic roles have been for the Amici Opera Company, which Tudisco founded 27 years ago.

“When my family moved to Rugby Street,” said Tudisco in an earlier interview, “my mom gave me a 45 RPM player. I’d listen to tenor arias and sing opera at the top of my lungs on a rocking horse or on the front steps. People would stop their cars and listen. My dad would make me sing everywhere. I didn’t like it, but people would give me money.

“At show and tell in school, other kids would bring in dolls or toy cars. I’d bring in opera records and sing,” he continued. “I’d go home every day and listen to several operas. My dad would say, ‘Ralphie, go to bed,’ but I always had operatic music running through my head. My dad, also named Ralph, once ran an opera house in Brooklyn with 3,500 seats for a few years. In 1966, he sold tickets for $1.50, $2.50 and $3.50. In performances of ‘Aida,’ he had a real camel and horses on stage.”

Tudisco likes to compare his opera company to Amato Opera, a small but prestigious company in New York’s East Village from 1948 to 2009. “They did 60 different operas in 61 years,” he said. “We did 232 in 26 seasons up to the end of 2025. That’s almost four times as many in one-third of the time. We have done five new ones this year, and we do them 12 months a year. Nobody else does that.”

Michelle Schulman, a soprano who has performed often with the Amici Opera Company, told the Local, “There is no one anywhere like Ralph. Every minute of every day is filled with opera. He breaths, eats and sleeps opera. He is so obsessed, but that obsession has produced an unbelievable amount of extraordinary music.”

As a teenager, Tudisco purchased operatic scores from Italy and London. He now has between 700 and 800 scores, many of them signed. He also has 25,000 records, six Victrolas and 13,000 CDs. His house is a virtual museum. “I’m running out of room,” he said unsurprisingly.

“We have done more than 50 operas that were never done in the U.S. before, like ‘Gina’ by Cilea, who wrote five operas. We’ve done four. He died in 1950. ‘Gina’ was only performed once before in 1999 in Italy. People were surprised the music is so wonderful because it is not ‘Rigoletto’ or ‘La Traviata.’ Those operas are popular and rightfully so, but there are so many other great ones that even opera buffs have never heard of. For example, many times we did Donizetti’s ‘Torquato Tasso’ that is so wonderful. I first heard it when I was 16 and went nuts. I paid $100 for a bad photocopy of the score. And we have done eight Russian operas Who does that?”

For more information, call 267-201-5757. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.