Michael Bishop
Last season’s stellar Kaiser in Die frau ohne Schatten affirmed that Thomas is officially in his teutonic era. Today’s clip, featuring Thomas in the Rome Narrative from his first-ever Tannhaüser in Houston last spring, is further testament.
Ilana Walder-Biesanz, who caught a performance of the run, described Thomas in these pages:
Consistent sound across his range, biting top notes full of delicious tenor squillo, and expressive storytelling with both his voice his eloquent facial acting make for a winning combination. If he occasionally sounds shouty, it’s at least dramatically appropriate.
Yet despite successes as both Tannhaüser and Parsifal over the past two seasons, there is no Wagner scheduled for Thomas’s upcoming season after another first just yesterday, Act II of Tristan in Helsinki. American audiences can next hear Thomas as Canio in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Pagliacci this fall.
Wagner: Tannhaüser, “Zurück von mir!… Hör an, Wolfram, hör an!”
Russell Thomas
Conductor: Erik Nielsen
Houston Grand Opera
April 2025
In-house
Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
