From: Miami, Florida. LA Opera: Pollione in Norma (2015, debut); Cavaradossi in Tosca (2017); title role in The Clemency of Titus (2019); online Signature Recital (2021); title role of Oedipus Rex (2021); Radames in Aida (2022); title role in Otello (2023); Calaf in Turandot (2024); soloist in Fire and Blue Sky (2024). He has been the company's Artist in Residence since 2021.
With a “heroically shining tone of exceptional clarity and precision” (Opera magazine) and “gorgeously burnished power” (New York Times), American tenor Russell Thomas uses his signature elegance and intensity to create vivid character portrayals on the world’s most important stages.
His engagements for the 2021/22 season include his return to LA Opera as Radames in Aida, Florestan in Fidelio with San Francisco Opera, Cavaradossi in Tosca with Cincinnati Opera, Don Alvaro in La Forza del Destino at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the title role of Otello at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Appearances in the 2022/23 season will include the title role of Ernani with Lyric Opera of Chicago and Calaf in Turandot with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
He opened the truncated 2019/20 season with his role debut as Don Alvaro in a new production of La forza del destino at Deutsche Oper Berlin, and subsequently made his role and house debuts as Radames in Houston Grand Opera’s new production of Aida. He also returned to Washington National Opera as the title character in Otello. On the concert stage, he joined Gianandrea Noseda at the Vienna Konzerthaus for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. (Engagements cancelled due to the pandemic included leading roles at the Metropolitan Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera and Canadian Opera Company.)
The 2018/19 season featured Mr. Thomas’s hotly anticipated stage debut in Verdi’s iconic Otello, seen at the Canadian Opera Company after concert performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. He sang Manrico in Il Trovatore at the Bavarian State Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago, made his role debut as Roberto Devereux at San Francisco Opera, and brought his celebrated Titus in The Clemency of Titus to LA Opera. On the concert stage, he joined the World Orchestra for Peace in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at the BBC Proms, and performed Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. He closed his season by reuniting with conductor Teodor Currentzis and director Peter Sellars for a new Idomeneo at the Salzburger Festspiele.
Mr. Thomas has enjoyed a string of operatic triumphs in recent seasons, including performances as Don Carlo at Washington National Opera and Deutsche Oper Berlin; Cavaradossi in Tosca at LA Opera and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; and Pollione in Norma at Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, LA Opera, Canadian Opera Company, and Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia. He has debuted as Florestan in Fidelio at Cincinnati Opera, as Stiffelio at Oper Frankfurt, and as Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana at Deutsche Oper Berlin. Mr. Thomas has sung Rodolfo in La Bohème at the Metropolitan Opera, Loge in Das Rheingold with the New York Philharmonic, Adorno in Simon Boccanegra at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and Ismaele in Nabucco at the Metropolitan Opera and Seattle Opera. His portrayal of the title character in the new Peter Sellars production of The Clemency of Titus at the Salzburg Festival and Dutch National Opera drew praise from the The New Yorker, which noted, “Thomas’s penetrating tenor, which has lately acquired richness and heft, anchored the evening.”
Future seasons include appearances in Berlin, London, Toronto, Chicago, Houston, New York, and Washington, D.C.
Learn more at RussellThomasTenor.com.
