Moser, Thomas

Moser, Thomas, American tenor; b. Richmond, Va., May 27, 1945. After training at the Richmond (Va.) Professional Inst., he studied at the Curtis Inst. of Music in Philadelphia. He later pursued vocal training with Martial Singher, Gérard Souzay, and Lotte Lehmann. In 1974 he was a winner in the Metropolitan Opera Auditions, and in 1975 he joined the Graz Landestheater. In 1976 he appeared as Mozart’s Belmonte with the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. From 1977 he sang with the Vienna State Opera, where he appeared as Mozart’s Tamino, Ottavio, Titus, and Idomeneo, Strauss’s Flamand and Henry, and Gluck’s Achilles. He made his first appearance with the N.Y.C. Opera in 1979 as Titus. In 1983 he sang at the Salzburg Festival, returning there in 1984 to create the role of the tenor in Berio’s Un re in ascolto. In 1985 he made his debut at Milan’s La Scala as Tamino. In 1986 he sang for the first time at the Rome Opera as Achilles. In 1988 he appeared in the title role of Schubert’s Fierrabras at the Theater an der Wien. In 1992 he sang the Emperor in Die Frau ohne Schatten in Geneva. He portrayed Palestrina during the visit to N.Y. of the Royal Opera of London in 1997. In 1998 he was engaged as Florestan in Chicago and as Peter Grimes in San Francisco. As a concert artist, he appeared with leading North American and European orchs. His expansive operatic and concert repertoire ranges from early music to the cosmopolitan avant-garde.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis Mclntire