Marjorie Thomas
Encyclopedia
Marjorie Gwendolen Thomas (5 June 1923 – 12 September 2008) was an English
opera
and oratorio
singer for almost three decades.
Thomas sang at the Royal Opera House
and was a regular performer at the Promenade Concerts and the Three Choirs Festival
s and, for many years, a professor of singing at London's Royal Academy of Music
. A favourite soloist of Sir Malcolm Sargent
's, she also participated in a number of recordings of Gilbert and Sullivan
operas.
tenor
, and her mother, an amateur pianist, was Scottish. When Thomas was two years old, her family moved to Oldham
, Lancashire
. She was educated at the Hulme
Grammar School for Girls, then the Manchester High School for Girls
from 1934 to 1939 and became a member of the choir at St Paul's Church in Oldham. She studied piano with her mother beginning at age 5, and later with William Walton
's brother Noel. In 1940, at the age of 17, Thomas won a scholarship to the Royal Manchester College of Music
to study piano. There, in her second term, she began to study singing with Elsie Thurston, which became her principal study, graduating in 1944. After this, she taught music for a year at Stockport
Convent High School for Girls.
, Thomas' warm, lyrical contralto
voice was heard in opera and concerts in England for almost three decades. In 1945, Thomas debuted with the Hallé Orchestra under conductor John Barbirolli
, in Edward Elgar
's Sea Pictures
. The same year, she sang the role of Konchakovna in Thomas Beecham
's radio production of Alexander Borodin
's Prince Igor
. Beecham asked her for "more emotion" when he heard her audition but then added: "But how could you have experienced emotion – 22 and living in Manchester?" Nevertheless, he invited her back to perform at his 1946 Delius
festival and for his second recording of George Frideric Handel
's Messiah
in 1947. Thereafter, she was often heard in Messiah. While rehearsing for Prince Igor, she met Edwin "Teddy" Gower, the sound engineer for the broadcast. The couple married in 1947.
Thomas took a year off from her career after the birth of her daughter, Eileen, in 1948. Her career then accelerated, both in opera and on the concert stage. In 1950, Thomas first sang the role of the Dryade in Ariadne auf Naxos
at Glyndebourne and the Edinburgh Festival
. She also sang Nancy in Albert Herring
with Benjamin Britten
's English Opera Group at the Cheltenham Festival
in 1951. In 1953, she sang the roles of the Rhinemaiden Flosshilde in Das Rheingold
and Götterdämmerung
and the Valkyrie Rossweisse in Die Walküre
in Rudolf Kempe
's Covent Garden
production of Wagner's ring cycle (also recording these roles) and Magdalena in Rafael Kubelík
's Covent Garden production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
. With Kubelík, she also recorded Gustav Mahler
's Third Symphony
. In 1960, she created the role of Hermia in Benjamin Britten's opera, A Midsummer Night's Dream
, which she performed at its premiere at Aldeburgh, then at the Holland festival and Covent Garden. William Walton
wrote his Gloria for her in 1961. She also recorded a well-received complete Johannes Brahms
Liebeslieder Waltzes, Op. 52 & 65
, with Elsie Morison
, Richard Lewis
and Donald Bell, accompanied by Vitya Vronsky and Victor Babin
. She also was known for performances and recordings of Johann Sebastian Bach
's Christmas Oratorio
, Mass in B Minor and Cantata No 6.
Thomas performed with Malcolm Sargent
for the first time in 1951, with his Royal Choral Society
and the Huddersfield Choral Society
. She became one of his favourite soloists, often singing his orchestration of Brahms's Four Serious Songs. She continued to sing with both of these choirs in all of the oratorios conducted by Sargent until his death in 1967. She was, perhaps, most admired for her performances as Angel in Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius
, which she recorded in 1954 with Sargent, the Huddersfield Choral Society and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
. The Daily Telegraph
wrote of this recording: "The luminous beauty of her tone, her perfect diction and the warmth and dignity with which she invested the music are a lesson for young singers." With Sargent, she also recorded Felix Mendelssohn
's Elijah
Messiah, Vaughan Williams's Serenade to Music
, Walton's Gloria and a series of Gilbert and Sullivan
mezzo-soprano
roles: Pitti-Sing in The Mikado
(1957); Tessa in The Gondoliers
(1957); Phoebe in The Yeomen of the Guard
(1958); Cousin Hebe in H.M.S. Pinafore
(1958); the title role in Iolanthe
(1959); Kate in The Pirates of Penzance
(1961); and Lady Angela in Patience
(1963). She also is heard on the soundtrack of the 1953 film The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan
.
During her career, Thomas sang in the United States and throughout Europe. She continued to perform in the 1960s, singing at an international performance of Bach's Mass in B Minor at the Vatican
in 1963 that marked the election of Pope Paul VI
and for the investiture of the Prince of Wales at Caernarfon
in 1969. She retired from concert singing in 1973.
in 1960 and in 1964 accepted a post at London's Royal Academy of Music
. She became the head of vocal studies there in 1984, where she taught until 1990. Her students included Susan Bullock
. After her retirement from the Academy of Music, she adjudicated at festivals and singing competitions.
Thomas died at the age of 85 after a long illness.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
and oratorio
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
singer for almost three decades.
Thomas sang at the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
and was a regular performer at the Promenade Concerts and the Three Choirs Festival
Three Choirs Festival
The Three Choirs Festival is a music festival held each August alternately at the cathedrals of the Three Counties and originally featuring their three choirs, which remain central to the week-long programme...
s and, for many years, a professor of singing at London's Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
. A favourite soloist of Sir Malcolm Sargent
Malcolm Sargent
Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works...
's, she also participated in a number of recordings of Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
operas.
Biography
Thomas was born in Sunderland, England. Her father was a WelshWales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
, and her mother, an amateur pianist, was Scottish. When Thomas was two years old, her family moved to Oldham
Oldham
Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amid the Pennines on elevated ground between the rivers Irk and Medlock, south-southeast of Rochdale, and northeast of the city of Manchester...
, Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
. She was educated at the Hulme
Hulme
Hulme is an inner city area and electoral ward of Manchester, England. Located immediately south of Manchester city centre, it is an area with significant industrial heritage....
Grammar School for Girls, then the Manchester High School for Girls
Manchester High School for Girls
Manchester High School for Girls is an independent daytime school for girls and a member of the Girls School Association. It is situated in Fallowfield, Manchester, United Kingdom...
from 1934 to 1939 and became a member of the choir at St Paul's Church in Oldham. She studied piano with her mother beginning at age 5, and later with William Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
's brother Noel. In 1940, at the age of 17, Thomas won a scholarship to the Royal Manchester College of Music
Royal Manchester College of Music
The Royal Manchester College of Music was founded in 1893 by Sir Charles Hallé who assumed the role as Principal. For a long period of time Hallé had argued for Manchester's need for a conservatoire to properly train the local talent. The Ducie Street building, just off Oxford Road, was purchased...
to study piano. There, in her second term, she began to study singing with Elsie Thurston, which became her principal study, graduating in 1944. After this, she taught music for a year at Stockport
Stockport
Stockport is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on elevated ground southeast of Manchester city centre, at the point where the rivers Goyt and Tame join and create the River Mersey. Stockport is the largest settlement in the metropolitan borough of the same name...
Convent High School for Girls.
Singing career
After World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Thomas' warm, lyrical contralto
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
voice was heard in opera and concerts in England for almost three decades. In 1945, Thomas debuted with the Hallé Orchestra under conductor John Barbirolli
John Barbirolli
Sir John Barbirolli, CH was an English conductor and cellist. Born in London, of Italian and French parentage, he grew up in a family of professional musicians. His father and grandfather were violinists...
, in Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
's Sea Pictures
Sea Pictures
Sea Pictures, Op. 37 is a song cycle by Sir Edward Elgar consisting of five songs written by various poets. It was set for contralto and orchestra, though a distinct version for piano was often performed by Elgar...
. The same year, she sang the role of Konchakovna in Thomas Beecham
Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...
's radio production of Alexander Borodin
Alexander Borodin
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Russian Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian–Russian parentage. He was a member of the group of composers called The Five , who were dedicated to producing a specifically Russian kind of art music...
's Prince Igor
Prince Igor
Prince Igor is an opera in four acts with a prologue. It was composed by Alexander Borodin. The composer adapted the libretto from the East Slavic epic The Lay of Igor's Host, which recounts the campaign of Russian prince Igor Svyatoslavich against the invading Polovtsian tribes in 1185...
. Beecham asked her for "more emotion" when he heard her audition but then added: "But how could you have experienced emotion – 22 and living in Manchester?" Nevertheless, he invited her back to perform at his 1946 Delius
Frederick Delius
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...
festival and for his second recording of George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
's Messiah
Messiah (Handel)
Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, and received its London premiere nearly a year later...
in 1947. Thereafter, she was often heard in Messiah. While rehearsing for Prince Igor, she met Edwin "Teddy" Gower, the sound engineer for the broadcast. The couple married in 1947.
Thomas took a year off from her career after the birth of her daughter, Eileen, in 1948. Her career then accelerated, both in opera and on the concert stage. In 1950, Thomas first sang the role of the Dryade in Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Bringing together slapstick comedy and consuming beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention.- First version :The opera was originally...
at Glyndebourne and the Edinburgh Festival
Edinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
. She also sang Nancy in Albert Herring
Albert Herring
Albert Herring, Op. 39, is a chamber opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten.Composed in the winter of 1946 and the spring of 1947, this comic opera was a successor to his serious opera The Rape of Lucretia...
with Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
's English Opera Group at the Cheltenham Festival
Cheltenham Festival
The Cheltenham Festival is one of the most prestigious meetings in the National Hunt racing calendar in the United Kingdom, and has race prize money second only to the Grand National...
in 1951. In 1953, she sang the roles of the Rhinemaiden Flosshilde in Das Rheingold
Das Rheingold
is the first of the four operas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . It was originally written as an introduction to the tripartite Ring, but the cycle is now generally regarded as consisting of four individual operas.Das Rheingold received its premiere at the National Theatre...
and Götterdämmerung
Götterdämmerung
is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four operas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen...
and the Valkyrie Rossweisse in Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
in Rudolf Kempe
Rudolf Kempe
Rudolf Kempe was a German conductor.- Biography :Kempe was born in Dresden, where from the age of fourteen he studied at the Dresden State Opera School. He played oboe in the opera orchestra of Dortmund and then in the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra, from 1929...
's Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
production of Wagner's ring cycle (also recording these roles) and Magdalena in Rafael Kubelík
Rafael Kubelík
Rafael Jeroným Kubelík was a Czech conductor and composer.-Early life:Kubelík was born in Býchory, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary, today's Czech Republic. He was the sixth child of the Bohemian violinist Jan Kubelík, whom the younger Kubelík described as "a kind of god to me." His mother was a Hungarian...
's Covent Garden production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas still commonly performed today, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich, on June 21,...
. With Kubelík, she also recorded Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
's Third Symphony
Symphony No. 3 (Mahler)
The Symphony No. 3 by Gustav Mahler was written between 1893 and 1896. It is his longest piece and is the longest symphony in the standard repertoire, with a typical performance lasting around ninety to one hundred minutes.- Structure :...
. In 1960, she created the role of Hermia in Benjamin Britten's opera, A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream (opera)
A Midsummer Night's Dream is an opera with music by Benjamin Britten and set to a libretto adapted by the composer and Peter Pears from William Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream...
, which she performed at its premiere at Aldeburgh, then at the Holland festival and Covent Garden. William Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
wrote his Gloria for her in 1961. She also recorded a well-received complete Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
Liebeslieder Waltzes, Op. 52 & 65
Neue Liebeslieder, op. 65 (Brahms)
Neue Liebeslieder, Op. 65 , also known as Neue Liebesliederwalzer, written by Johannes Brahms, is a collection of Romantic pieces written for four solo voices and four hands on the piano. The Neue Liebeslieder were written during the Romantic period between 1869 and 1874...
, with Elsie Morison
Elsie Morison
Elsie Jean Morison is an Australian soprano.Morison was born in Ballarat, Victoria, and studied at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music from 1943-45...
, Richard Lewis
Richard Lewis (tenor)
Richard Lewis CBE was a Welsh tenor.Born Thomas Thomas in Manchester to Welsh parents, Lewis began his career as a boy soprano and studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music from 1939 to 1941...
and Donald Bell, accompanied by Vitya Vronsky and Victor Babin
Vronsky & Babin
Vronsky & Babin were regarded by many as one of the foremost duo-piano teams of the twentieth century. Vitya Vronsky was born in Yevpatoria . Victor Babin was born in Moscow, Russia...
. She also was known for performances and recordings of Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
's Christmas Oratorio
Christmas Oratorio
The Christmas Oratorio BWV 248, is an oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach intended for performance in church during the Christmas season. It was written for the Christmas season of 1734 incorporating music from earlier compositions, including three secular cantatas written during 1733 and 1734 and a...
, Mass in B Minor and Cantata No 6.
Thomas performed with Malcolm Sargent
Malcolm Sargent
Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works...
for the first time in 1951, with his Royal Choral Society
Royal Choral Society
The Royal Choral Society is an amateur choir, based in London. Formed soon after the opening of the Royal Albert Hall in 1871, the choir gave its first performance as the Royal Albert Hall Choral Society on 8 May 1872 – the choir's first conductor Charles Gounod included the Hallelujah Chorus from...
and the Huddersfield Choral Society
Huddersfield Choral Society
Huddersfield Choral Society is an internationally famous choir based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1836, and is recognised as one of Britain's leading choirs...
. She became one of his favourite soloists, often singing his orchestration of Brahms's Four Serious Songs. She continued to sing with both of these choirs in all of the oratorios conducted by Sargent until his death in 1967. She was, perhaps, most admired for her performances as Angel in Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius
The Dream of Gerontius
The Dream of Gerontius, popularly called just Gerontius, is a work for voices and orchestra in two parts composed by Edward Elgar in 1900, to text from the poem by John Henry Newman. It relates the journey of a pious man's soul from his deathbed to his judgment before God and settling into Purgatory...
, which she recorded in 1954 with Sargent, the Huddersfield Choral Society and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society is a society based in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, that organises concerts and other events mainly in the field of classical music. The society is the second oldest of its type in the United Kingdom and its orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic...
. The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
wrote of this recording: "The luminous beauty of her tone, her perfect diction and the warmth and dignity with which she invested the music are a lesson for young singers." With Sargent, she also recorded Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
's Elijah
Elijah (oratorio)
Elijah, in German: Elias, is an oratorio written by Felix Mendelssohn in 1846 for the Birmingham Festival. It depicts various events in the life of the Biblical prophet Elijah, taken from the books 1 Kings and 2 Kings in the Old Testament....
Messiah, Vaughan Williams's Serenade to Music
Serenade to Music
Serenade to Music is a work by Ralph Vaughan Williams for 16 vocal soloists and orchestra, composed in 1938. The text is an adaptation of the discussion about music and the music of the spheres in Act V, Scene 1 of The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare. Vaughan Williams later arranged...
, Walton's Gloria and a series of Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
roles: Pitti-Sing in The Mikado
The Mikado
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...
(1957); Tessa in The Gondoliers
The Gondoliers
The Gondoliers; or, The King of Barataria is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 7 December 1889 and ran for a very successful 554 performances , closing on 30 June 1891...
(1957); Phoebe in The Yeomen of the Guard
The Yeomen of the Guard
The Yeomen of the Guard; or, The Merryman and His Maid, is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 3 October 1888, and ran for 423 performances...
(1958); Cousin Hebe in H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...
(1958); the title role in Iolanthe
Iolanthe
Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh collaboration of the fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan....
(1959); Kate in The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
(1961); and Lady Angela in Patience
Patience (opera)
Patience; or, Bunthorne's Bride, is a comic opera in two acts with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. First performed at the Opera Comique, London, on 23 April 1881, it moved to the 1,292-seat Savoy Theatre on 10 October 1881, where it was the first theatrical production in the...
(1963). She also is heard on the soundtrack of the 1953 film The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan
The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan
The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan is a 1953 British technicolor film that dramatises the story of the collaboration between W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. Gilbert and Sullivan authored 14 comic operas, later referred to as the Savoy Operas, which became the most popular series of musical...
.
During her career, Thomas sang in the United States and throughout Europe. She continued to perform in the 1960s, singing at an international performance of Bach's Mass in B Minor at the Vatican
Vatican City
Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...
in 1963 that marked the election of Pope Paul VI
Pope Paul VI
Paul VI , born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Second Vatican Council, he decided to continue it...
and for the investiture of the Prince of Wales at Caernarfon
Caernarfon
Caernarfon is a Royal town, community and port in Gwynedd, Wales, with a population of 9,611. It lies along the A487 road, on the east banks of the Menai Straits, opposite the Isle of Anglesey. The city of Bangor is to the northeast, while Snowdonia fringes Caernarfon to the east and southeast...
in 1969. She retired from concert singing in 1973.
Teaching and later years
Thomas became a professor of singing at the Royal Manchester College of MusicRoyal Manchester College of Music
The Royal Manchester College of Music was founded in 1893 by Sir Charles Hallé who assumed the role as Principal. For a long period of time Hallé had argued for Manchester's need for a conservatoire to properly train the local talent. The Ducie Street building, just off Oxford Road, was purchased...
in 1960 and in 1964 accepted a post at London's Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
. She became the head of vocal studies there in 1984, where she taught until 1990. Her students included Susan Bullock
Susan Bullock
Susan Bullock is an English soprano.She was educated at Cheadle Hulme School, and further at Royal Holloway College, University of London, the Royal Academy of Music and the National Opera Studio....
. After her retirement from the Academy of Music, she adjudicated at festivals and singing competitions.
Thomas died at the age of 85 after a long illness.