Blanche Thebom - Post Opera Career

Post Opera Career

Upon her retirement from the Metropolitan Opera in 1967, Thebom no longer appeared on the opera stage. However, she did periodically sing in concerts and recitals; notably appearing in several recitals with Eleanor Steber. In June 1967 she was appointed director of the opera division at the Atlanta Municipal Theatre. When that organization went bankrupt in 1969, she founded her own opera company: Atlanta's Southern Regional Opera. She remained General Director of that company until 1973 when it ceased operating.

While working in Atlanta, Thebom began actively working as a voice teacher. She also appeared in summer theatre revivals of Broadway musicals in Atlanta portraying roles like the Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music. In 1973 she moved to Little Rock to join the music faculty at the University of Arkansas. She taught singing and was director of the opera program there until the Spring of 1980 when she was appointed director of the opera program at San Francisco State University (SFSU).

While teaching at SFSU and later privately, Thebom served as chair of the Pacific Region Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions for fifteen years. In the late 1980s she co-founded the Opera Arts Training Program of the San Francisco Girls Chorus with Elizabeth Appling. She continued to lead that organization up into the early 2000s. Several of the girls who attended the program later became professional opera singers. Thebom also served on the board of the Metropolitan Opera from 1970–2008, and was a judge for the national level of the Miss America pageant.

At the age of 94, Blanche Thebom died of heart failure at her home in San Francisco on Tuesday, March 23, 2010.