WilliamThomas

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  • Bass
Credit: JBR Studio @jbrstudio_ studiojbr.com
Credit: JBR Studio @jbrstudio_ studiojbr.com

About William

A graduate of the Opera Course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and recipient of a number of major awards, British bass William Thomas is fast making a name for himself as one of today’s most promising young singers.

Highlights in his 2024/25 season include his debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich as Colline La bohème, Sparafucile Rigoletto in a return to the English National Opera and his Carnegie Hall debut in Bach's Johannes-Passion with the Orchestra of St Luke's/Bernard Labadie.

Recent appearances have included roles for the Wiener Staatsoper; the Opéra national de Paris; La Scala, Milan; the Glyndebourne and Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festivals and, in concert, the Salzburg Festival with Camerata Salzburg/Manfred Honeck and the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra/Dinis Sousa, the BBC Proms with the Britten Sinfonia/David Bates, the Edinburgh Festival with The English Concert/John Butt and with the London Symphony Orchestra/François-Xavier Roth.

William is based in London

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Contact

Keiron Cooke

Keiron Cooke

Associate Director
Will Pate

Will Pate

Associate Artist Manager

Representation

Worldwide general management with Askonas Holt

Follow William

Season Highlights

Oct 2024 - Nov 2024
English National Opera, London
VERDI - Rigoletto (Sparafucile)
Dec 2024 - Dec 2024
Quebec and Montreal
HANDEL - Messiah Bernard Labadie (conductor) Les Violons du Roy
Jan 2025 - Jan 2025
Symphony Hall, Xinghai Concert Hall
BEETHOVEN - Symphony No. 9 Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra/Huang Yi
Feb 2025 - Feb 2025
Bayerische Staatsoper
PUCCINI - La bohème (Colline)
Apr 2025 - Apr 2025
Carnegie Hall
BACH - St John Passion Orchestra of St Luke's Bernard Labadie (Conductor)

Video

Audio

  • Mussorgsky: Song of the Flea
  • Poulenc: Mazurka

Photos

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News

Press

  • Verdi - Rigoletto

    English National Opera
    Nov 2024 - Nov 2024

    • Still, the very best voice onstage was that of the youthful bass William Thomas, limning an uncompromising Sparafucile.

    • They say the devil has the best tunes, and on this occasion he also had the best voice, as William Thomas delivered the finest singing of the evening as an inky-voiced Sparafucile – his low F as he slinks away into the darkness after his first encounter with Rigoletto deserving of the spontaneous applause. Not only was every word crisply enunciated, he used his cavernous bass voice to bring the character vividly to life.

    • …the most arresting singing comes from William Thomas

    • ...William Thomas’s spivvy assassin Sparafucile… supplies some of the best singing of the night.

    • William Thomas as Sparafucile makes the most of few lines, his rich, sepulchral bass vanishing into the darkness

    • William Thomas was a creepily impressive Sparafucile

    • The evening’s most vivid contribution came from bass William Thomas as the assassin Sparafucile. As well as sounding balefully imposing, the singer’s outstanding stagecraft allowed him to command the action even when only half-lit, inhabiting a forbidding stillness whence bled a barely-contained threat of violence

    • ...the secondary roles shone. And none more so than William Thomas’s hit-man Sparafucile: a classy killer down to the lowest depths of his brushed-velvet bass in the great exchange where Rigoletto perceives his kinship with the hired assassin (“I kill a man with laughter”).

    • Former ENO Harewood artist, British bass William Thomas as the black-hatted assassin Sparafucile combined vocal resonance and power with a youthful litheness that provided a welcome contrast to older ‘grim reaper’ iterations of the character. His easy corruptibility as a ‘man of honour’ was well combined with the more threatening aspects of the character

  • 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.

Discography