Showing posts with label Marriage of Figaro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marriage of Figaro. Show all posts

Sunday, 1 January 2012

Thomas Allen

One of the best ways to discover more about the opera repertoire, find new composers and operas, is to be guided by a favourite artist. Although I enjoyed listening to and watching the Three Tenors, the first singer who really stood out was Thomas Allen.

Sir Tom is a baritone (a lower voice than a tenor and the voice that most males naturally have), born in Seaham, County Durham in the north-east of England in 1944. A mining town, the story of Allen's move away from this background and into the arts is said (by the writer himself) to have influenced Lee Hall's film Billy Elliot. I first met in the video of La Boheme where he plays the painter and friend, Marcello. Here is another clip, from the third act: