Blanche Thebom - Early Career and Performing at The Metropolitan Opera

Early Career and Performing At The Metropolitan Opera

Thebom's first prominent engagement as a performer came in November 1941 when she made her first appearance as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra under conductor Eugene Ormandy with fellow guest the University of Pennsylvania Glee Club at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. She then spent the next three years performing in concerts and recitals throughout the United States. She also sang at the Academy of Music for her professional opera debut on 28 November 1944; portraying the role of Brangäne in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde for an out of town engagement of New York's Metropolitan Opera. She repeated that role for her first appearance on the New York stage at the Metropolitan Opera House on the following 14 December.

Thebom sang with the Metropolitan Opera for the next 22 seasons, giving a total of 357 performances with the company during her career. Her most frequently assailed role at the Met was Amneris in Giuseppe Verdi's Aida; a part she played in 80 performances opposite such Aidas as Gloria Davy, Florence Kirk, Zinka Milanov, Herva Nelli, Delia Rigal, Antonietta Stella, Renata Tebaldi, and Ljuba Welitsch among others. She also excelled in Wagner's operas at the Met, portraying the roles of Erda in Das Rheingold, Magdalene in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Ortrud in Lohengrin, Venus in Tannhäuser, Waltraute in Götterdämmerung, and Fricka in both Die Walküre and Das Rheingold.

In 1951 Thebom appeared as Dorabella in the premiere of Alfred Lunt's popular English-language production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Così fan tutte at the Met. She also appeared in two United States premieres at the Met; singing the roles of Baba the Turk in Igor Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress (1953) and Adelaide in Richard Strauss' Arabella (1955). Other roles she performed at the Met included Adalgisa in Norma, Azucena in Il trovatore, Dalila in Samson and Delilah, Eboli in Don Carlos, Geneviève in Pelléas et Mélisande, Giulietta in The Tales of Hoffmann, Herodias in Salome, Klytämnestra in Elektra, Laura Adorno in La Gioconda, Marfa in Khovanshchina, Marina in Boris Godunov, the Old Baroness in Vanessa, Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, and the title roles in Carmen and Mignon. Her final performance at the Met was as the Countess in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades on March 6, 1967. That was the only production that she appeared in at the then newly built Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center.