WilliamThomas

/
Bass
Scroll for more

News

  • 18 March 2024

    Bayerische Staatsoper 2024/25 season to feature 23 Askonas Holt artists

    Read full article
  • 29 January 2024

    Andrea Carroll and William Thomas debut at the Royal Opera House

    Read full article

Press

  • Schubert, Strauss and Wolf Recital

    Wigmore Hall
    Dec 2023

    • William Thomas has fast made an impact as a rapidly rising star of the bass world... The concert opened with an Italian flourish, as he deftly performed Schuberts's exquisite, gently satirical setting of Metastasio’s "L’incanto degli occhi". With its comically dramatic contrasts of emotion, this perfectly demonstrated Thomas’s ability to fill his voice with light or shade as the occasion demands. Each separate mood was beautifully shaped, “Ardir m’inspirate,/Se liete splendete;/Se torbidi siete,/Mi fate tremar,” (“You inspire me with daring/if you shine joyfully; if you are overcast, you make me tremble”). It was a nicely judged amuse-bouche for the richer fare to follow... ... in "Fahrt zum Hades" ("Journey to Hades") Thomas’s mastery of light and shade powerfully evoked the full emotional spectrum of a man yearning for the world he’s leaving behind.

  • Puccini - La Boheme

    Glyndebourne on Tour
    Oct 2022

    • ... William Thomas an eloquent Colline

    • William Thomas, looking a bit like the young Jean-Paul Sartre, is the funny, touching Colline.

    • ...the revelation is William Thomas’s Colline; having seen and heard him in concert alone up to this point, it’s good to note that fine acting goes hand in glove with a remarkable bass voice.

  • Handel - Saul

    Edinburgh International Festival
    Aug 2022

    • The ominous appearance of Samuel, upstage right (played wonderfully by William Thomas), was an inspired and imaginative touch.

    • Special mention must be made the sonorous and impressive Samuel [William Thomas] who delivered his bad news from the rear of the stage but still filled the entire auditorium with sound.

  • Duparc - The Complete Songs

    CD
    Jul 2022

    • ..sopranos Samantha Clarke and Soraya Mafi, contralto Jess Dandy and bass William Thomas all strike me as young artists to monitor closely in the years ahead...there's no denying the decidedly superior craftsmanship, literary instinct and sheer maturity already on display in the very early Three Songs, Op 2 [and] William Thomas does this triptych proud.

      • Gramophone
      • 01 July 2022

    • The bass William Thomas is already well established on the international circuit. Just a couple of months ago I reviewed a set with the complete songs of Samuel Barber, where he made a good impression. This recording confirms that impression. His tone is a bit on the rough side, which befits a young bass, and he is very expressive. He is lively and dramatic in Le galop, the only extrovert song in Duparc’s output. Both the singing and the piano part are vigorous and muscular. The stormy La vague et la cloche is a tour de force for both singer and pianist. Thomas is powerful but also sensitive. He also has the honour of rounding off the programme with La vie antérieure, another Baudelaire setting. Fine singing indeed!

    • We end with a little bit of magic. William Thomas in Duparc's final Beaudelaire setting, La vie antérieure where he displays a fabulous sense of flexibility, allied to variety of tone and colour. He and Martineau make the song a real piece of interior life. I do hope that someone asks Thomas to do a disc of French song, there are so many that I would love to hear him singing.

    • Thomas' fine bass is controlled yet spirited in 'Le galop' and again both considered yet forthright in his account of the Poe-lie 'La vague et la cloche

      • BBC Music Magazine

    • Bass William Thomas takes listeners to a more exuberant sound world with Le Galop, brimming with a sense of confidence and recklessness. Thomas’ La vie antérieure is lovely though, and he sings well within himself, with a sense of repose and majesty.

  • Handel - Acis and Galatea

    Stone Nest, London
    Mar 2022

    • ...the superb young bass William Thomas [who] I count as the best sung Polyphemus I have heard since Willard White or John Tomlinson. He was also a strong, even menacing dramatic presence

      • Opera
      • 01 June 2022

    • Will Thomas’ Polyphemus was wonderfully sung, managing to combine the necessary strength and over dominance with the necessary Handelian style – quite a feat. There was nothing comic about this Polyphemus, nothing of the buffoon, nor was he ugly. In fact, Thomas’ Polyphemus was remarkably personable, his ugliness came from the fact that he failed to realise he was unwelcome; this was a very modern reading of the story.

    • It is the distinctive bass of Will Thomas as the jealous Polyphemus, thundering and mighty in his rage at being denied the love of Galatea, that lingers in the mind as the music ends, the smoke clears and the sand is raked on the stage floor.

  • Puccini - La bohème

    English National Opera
    Jan 2022

    • The standout among the cast was William Thomas as Colline, whose sonorous bass captured the audience's attention from his very first entrance. His final act aria, effortlessly projected and luxuriously smooth, promises an exciting career.

    • William Thomas’s nobly sung Colline

      • Neil Fisher, The Times
      • 01 February 2022

  • Glass - Satyagraha

    English National Opera
    Oct 2021

    • James Cleverton’s Mr Kallenbach’s baritone, William Thomas’s bass Parsi Rustomji, soprano Verity Wingate’s Mrs Naidoo, Felicity Buckland’s mezzo Kasturbai (Ghandi’s wife) blend like milk and honey.

    • William Thomas’s humane and resonant Parsi Rustomji

  • Mozart - Requiem

    Britten Sinfonia/David Bates at the BBC Proms
    Aug 2021

    • ...bass William Thomas, who was much the most characterful of the soloists. His splendid opening flourish in the Tuba Mirum was the performance’s highlight.