Jess Thomas - Operatic Career

Operatic Career

Thomas made his operatic debut in 1957 for the San Francisco Opera performing in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier as the Haushofmeister. In 1958, he debuted in the title role of Richard Wagner's Lohengrin for the Karlsruhe Staatstheater at the commencement of a career in Germany. Thomas appeared as Bacchus in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos at the Munich Festival.

It was at Bayreuth that he established his reputation as a Wagnerian tenor performing in the following roles:

• Parsifal 1961-63, 1965;
• Lohengrin 1962, 1967;
• Siegmund in Die Walküre 1967 (Bayreuth Festival on Tour in Osaka);
• Walther in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg 1963,1969;
• Tannhäuser 1966-67; and
• Siegfried 1969, 1976.

In 1963, he joined the cast of the Metropolitan Opera and went on to sing 109 performances of 15 roles with the company, including all the major tenor roles of Wagner. Amongst the highlights of his career with the Metropolitan Opera was appearing at the opening of the new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center in the first performance of Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra with Leontyne Price.

On December 9, 1981, San Francisco Opera general director Kurt Herbert Adler called Thomas an hour before a performance of Die Walküre. Heldentenor James King had lost his voice, and Adler asked Thomas if he would like to sing the role in an hour. "But I haven't even shaved yet," Thomas said. Though he hadn't looked at the score in years, Thomas performed the role at age of 54, relying on a strong memory of the Siegmund role and some expert prompting. The next day, headlines proclaimed Thomas's 11th-hour rescue for Die Walküre. Thomas's farewell performance took place in Washington DC in a guest performance of Parsifal by the Metropolitan Opera in 1982.

His recordings include Die Meistersinger (with Claire Watson, 1963), Die Frau ohne Schatten (1963), Siegfried (conducted by Herbert von Karajan, 1968–69), Ariadne auf Naxos (conducted by Karl Böhm, 1969) and, from Bayreuth, Parsifal (with Irene Dalis as Kundry, led by Hans Knappertsbusch, 1962) and Lohengrin (with Anja Silja and Astrid Varnay, 1962).