Blanche Thebom

Blanche Thebom (September 19, 1915 – March 23, 2010 ) was an American operatic mezzo-soprano, voice teacher, and opera director. She was part of the first wave of American opera singers that had highly successful international careers. In her own country she had a long association with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City which lasted 22 years. Opera News stated, "An ambitious beauty with a velvety, even-grained dramatic mezzo, Thebom was a natural for opera: she commanded the stage with the elegantly disciplined hauteur of an old-school diva, relishing the opportunity to play femmes du monde such as Marina in Boris Godunov, Herodias and Dalila."

While Thebom sang a wide repertoire which encompassed everything from Handel and Mozart to Verdi and Debussy, she was best known for her performances in the operas of Richard Wagner. Two Wagner roles with which she was particularly associated were Fricka in Die Walküre and Brangaene in Tristan und Isolde. She notably sang the latter role in the famous 1952 EMI recording made in London with Kirsten Flagstad, Ludwig Suthaus, and conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler. She is Didon in Les Troyens (world premiere 1957, conducted by Rafael Kubelik). In addition to several other recordings, she also appeared in two feature films during her career: Irish Eyes Are Smiling (1944) and The Great Caruso (1951). Her year of birth is sometimes incorrectly given as 1918. She was raised in Canton, Ohio, where she studied ballet and was active as a singer in her church's choir. She continued to take ballet lessons into her 40s. She completed business college and then took a job as a secretary at an industrial firm in Canton. After Boghetti's death in July 1941, she studied with retired Metropolitan Opera mezzo-sopranos Edyth Walker and Margarete Matzenauer in New York City.

Thebom sang with the Metropolitan Opera for the next 22 seasons, giving a total of 357 performances with the company during her career. Her most frequent role at the Met was Amneris in Giuseppe Verdi's Aida; a part she played in 80 performances opposite such Aidas as Gloria Davy, Florence Kirk, Zinka Milanov, Herva Nelli, Delia Rigal, Antonietta Stella, Renata Tebaldi, and Ljuba Welitsch among others. She also excelled in Wagner's operas at the Met, portraying the roles of Erda in Das Rheingold, Magdalene in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Ortrud in Lohengrin, Venus in Tannhäuser, Waltraute in Götterdämmerung, and Fricka in both Die Walküre and Das Rheingold. the Old Baroness in Vanessa, Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, and the title roles in Carmen and Mignon. Her final performance at the Met was as the Countess in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades on March 6, 1967; this was the only production that she appeared in at the Met after the company's 1966 move to the new opera house at Lincoln Center. She also sang Dalila to the Samson of Giovanni Martinelli at the Philadelphia Civic Grand Opera Company in 1950.

Thebom made her European debut in 1950 as Dalila at the Royal Swedish Opera (RSO). She returned to the RSO several times, singing such roles as Amneris, Eboli and — in what The Times described as "a not especially successful attempt at a soprano role" — as Elisabeth in Tannhäuser.

In 1957, at the pinnacle of the Cold War, Thebom became the first American to perform at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, where she portrayed Carmen for 3 weeks.

Post opera career After her retirement from the Metropolitan Opera in 1967, Thebom sang periodically in concerts and recitals. She appeared in several recitals with soprano Eleanor Steber. In June, 1967, Thebom 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 it ceased operations in 1973.

Recordings Blanche Thebom, mezzo-soprano: Arias from Don Carlos, La Gioconda, Tristan und Isolde, Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Götterdämmerung and Samson et Dalila; songs of Hugo Wolf, and Gustav Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer. Preiser 89559 CD Samson et Dalila (Camille Saint-Saëns), 1956, Set Svanholm, Blanche Thebom, Sigurd Björling, Herbert Sandberg, Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra and Chorus, Caprice; CAT: CAP 22054 Tristan und Isolde (Richard Wagner), 1952, Kirsten Flagstad, Ludwig Suthaus, Blache Thebom, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Operahouse, Covent Garden. EMI Classics.