John Charles Thomas in Opera & Song Review

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(More customer reviews)I grew up with John Charles Thomas. Indeed, before I was born, my mother knew him casually when she worked as a children's nurse on the flagship of the U.S. Lines and the great baritone "sang for his supper" on his trips abroad. Whenever he was in San Francisco for a concert he never failed to send tickets to my mother and grandmother. My special recollection of him was when he sang Malotte's "The Lord's Prayer" for me on his Westinghouse radio show when he learned that I had been seriously hurt in an accident.
Listen to the exquisite sincerity of his singing in the first half of the setting and then to the magnificence of the ending when Malotte's composition requires him to employ his operatic voice to reach the high note. His upper register is simply unbelievable. I know of no other male singer who sings an A Flat at the end of the beautiful "My Hero", though Thomas does so memorably.
The operatic surprise of the album must be the French arias. Today he would surely have been the definitive Herodiade. We have recently experienced Keenleyside's wonderful Hamlet, yet I recall "O vin, dissiple le tristesse" from a Thomas recording in my boyhood years. Listening to it again today in Nimbus' new release, I can only think how marvelous it would have been to have Thomas around to sing this and so many other French baritone roles.
The late and long-time critic of the Washington Post, whose name I cannot recall, used to have an opera program on WGMS in Washington. This critic grew up in Chicago and often heard JCT. The critic used to tease us with the knowledge he had heard JCT in "Rigoletto." He insisted in the early 80's that Thomas' ainging of this role was the greatest performance of it he had ever heard. He also insisted that he thought a recording of it existed somewhere. He never found it as far as I know. Are you listening Nimbus?
Robert Forst

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"If I had to choose the four greatest voices I’ve heard, I would list Thomas along with Enrico Caruso, Rosa Ponselle, and Ezio Pinza." -FRANK CHAPMAN, OPERA NEWSDuring his forty-eight year career, music critics ranked John Charles Thomas with Enrico Caruso, hailing him as one of the great voices of the twentieth century.One critic wrote, "I have seen a good many so-called enthralled audiences during my earthly career, I have seen them stand up and clap. I have heard them cheer. But I have never seen one just refuse to go home. That is ... until Mr. Thomas’ concert".Thomas made his operatic debut in Washington as Amonasro in Aida, on the eve of President Coolidge’s inauguration in 1924.Over seventy-eight minutes of music on one CD!This is the operatic companion disc to John Charles Thomas: An American Classic.Born in Meyersdale, Pennsylvania in 1891, John Charles Thomas studied voice at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore.After a successful career in musical comedy, he made his operatic debut in Washington DC and later sang with the Royal Opera, Brussels.He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1934 in Verdi’s La traviata, joining the company in 1935.Well-known as a concert and radio singer, Thomas also appeared in motion pictures. He died in 1960.Despite his magnificent voice, critics were often unkind to Thomas because he advocated translating opera into English and sang a large number of light classics in his recitals, things that stereotyped him as a "bourgeois" artist.

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