The folowing originally appeared as liner notes for the 1989 CD release:

The Program:
Rossini: Largo al factotum (Il Barbiere di Siviglia)
Verdi: Di Provenza il Mar (La Traviata)
Massenet: Vision Fugitive (Herodiade)
Leoncavallo: Prologue (I Pagliacci)
Verdi: Eri tu (Ballo in Maschera)
Beethoven: In Questa Tomba Oscura
Kellog: Sheila
Leoncavallo: Mattinata
Harrison: In the Gloaming
Cadman: At dawning
Herbert: My Dream Girl (The Dream Girl)
Behrend: Daddy
Lowry: Where is my wandering boy tonight
Lyte: Abide with me
Kilmar-Tours: Trees
Molloy: Love's Old Sweet SOng
Herbert: Gypsy Love Song (The Fortune Teller)
Hanby: Darling Nelly Gray
Von Tilzer: If you only knew
Jacobi: You are free (Apple Blossoms)
Homer: Uncle Rome
Jacobi: Little girls, goodbye (Apple Blossoms)

Total Time: 71:08

During the history of the Metropolitan Opera there have always been those artists who have maintained artistic careers outside the realm of "The House".  Lawrence Tibbett, Lily Pons, Lauritz Melchior and Grace Moore made numerous motion pictures during their years at the Met.  Eileen Farrell was a superb jazz musician and released a wonderful recording showing that side of her art.  When the new production of Wagner's Die Walkure was unveiled at the Metropolitan a few years ago, one of the Valkyries hired was Pamela Smith, a contralto with a prodigious lower register.  On off-nights of Die Walkure, she could be heard in her highly successful club act in Greenwich Village.

Another artist of such versatility was John Charles Thomas.  In addition to the years he spent at the Met, he had a successful career as an Operetta singer and a recitalist of Ballads - proving to be one of the few singers capable of such diverse artistic vascillation without sacrificing quality or imposing degrees of importance.  His recordings of Ballads are as finely sung as his recordings of difficult operatic arias.

John Charles Thomas was born in Meyersdale, Pennsylvania on September 6, 1891 and raised in Maryland and Pennsylvania.  Originally he wanted to be a minister like his father, but decided on medicine.  After winning a competition for a voice scholarship to the Peabody Conservatory, however, he abandoned medicine and studied music.  While at Peabody he studied with Blanch Blackman and Adelin Fermin.  In 1912 he made his professional debut as "Passion" in the post-Broadway tour of a musical morality play called Everywomen.  From 1913 to 1917 he performed in many Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, Passing Show of 1913, Alone at Last (Lehar), Her Soldier Boy (Romberg), The Highwayman (DeKoven) and Star Gazer (Lehar).  In August of 1917 Thomas replaced Charles Purcell, opposite Peggy Wood in Maytime (Romberg), which ran for 492 performances.  By this time he had become one of the most sought after leading men of the day.  He made his recital debut in 1918.  The recital was in the afternoon, and typically Thomasian, after the recital Thomas rushed to his evening performance of Maytime.  Also to become typical was the material Thomas chose for his recital.  It established his practice of utilising operatic arias, sentimental ballads and operetta or musical theater for his programs.

Thomas only appeared on Broadway two more times after Maytime - Kreisler's Apple Blosssoms (1919) and Jacobi's The Love Letter (1921).  The supporting cast for both works included the young Fred Astaire.

In 1922, Thomas went to Europe to study with the famous singer, Jean de Reszke.  He appeared in October of that year at London's Royal Albert Hall with the famous coloratura soprano, Luisa Tetrazzini and the violist, Bratza.  John Charles Thomas' selections included Eri tu (Ballo), "Tally Ho" (Leoni), "Passing By" (Purcell), And "Danny Deever" by Damrosch.

The next year he starred in the silent movie, Under the Red Robe with Anna Rubens and William Powell.  In December of 1924, he made his Carnegie Hall debut in a concert version of Rimsky-Korsakov's Sadko and on March 3, 1925 made his operatic debut with the Washington DC Opera as Amonasro in Aida.  After this he moved to Brussels, making his debut in that house on August 1, 1925 as Herod in Massenet's Herodiade.  Thomas remained with the house for 3 seasons singing such varried roles as Amonasro, Hamlet, Don Giovanni, Rigoletto, Zurga (Pecheurs de Perles), John the Baptist (Salome), Count de Luna (Trovatore), Tonio (Pagliacci) and Athanael (Thais).  He was extremely successful and made many guest appearances in Berlin and Vienna as well.  His debut at Covent Garden in June of 1928 was as Valentin in Faust and he also sang Amonasro at that house.  During the next years Thomas continued to give concerts and recitals and returned to America where he made his American operatic stage debut with the San Francisco Opera in September of 1930 in Herodiade with Maria Jeritza.  In November he made his Chicago Opera debut as Tonio remaining for two seasons.  Because of the Depression, there was no 1932-19933 season and only a brief 1934 season.  A favorite of that city, however, John Charles returned in 1934 and remained a frequent performer with the company until 1943.

Thomas made his debut with the Metropolitan Opera on February 2, 1934 as the elder Germont in La Traviata.  Although he had quite a success with the role and his debut - newspapers recognized him as "already a well-known artist" - his seven seasons with the company were overshadowed by the work of other baritones - Tibbett, Warren, Bonelli, Brownlee and Weede.

It is also not improbable that the management of the Metroplitan did not approve of Thomas' public display of unconventional musical combinations.  When in Chicago he frequently sang on concerts given by the opera company.  Yet while a member of the Metropolitan in New York, he rarely appeared on the traditional Sunday afternoon concerts.  Perhaps his decision (on January 5, 1936) to sing Eri tu (Ballo), some ballads and "The Lord's Prayer", influenced the management to by-pass him for such concerts.  Perhaps this carried over into other performances as well.  During his time at the Metropolitan, Thomas only sang a total of 54 performances of nine roles.

This managerial attitude of the Metroplitan Opera (that "their" singers concentrate soley on opera) is unspoken but definitely in existence and continues to this day.  Artists who show interests outside "the house" often find themselves less favorably dealt with than those whose world revolves completely around the opera house.  To be successful in other interests can become a problem.  Cross-overs are not appreciated for diversity but tend to be kept categorized.

It must be admitted, however, that John Charles Thomas was an unusually idiosyncratic performer.  For instance, after a Chicago Aida, he stepped out to take a solo bow and provided the audience with an encore of "Home on the Range".  This type of incongruous behavior, and his many interests outside of opera, may have contributed to the cavalier manner in which he was sometimes treated in classical music circles.  It has also been suggested that Thomas maintained a foothold in the operatic scene only for the added glamour it would give his other work.  Once he had gained acceptance as a "leading operatic baritone", his main interest reverted to other activities.  These included concerts, recitals, light opera, and countless radio broadcasts of ballads and religious material.

Despite the infrequency of his Metropolitan Opera performances, Thomas' broadcasts are avidly collected.  Especially Faust with Licia Albanese and Ezio Pinza (1/30/34), Il Barbiere di Siviglia with Lily Pons (1/22/38) and La Traviata with Vina Bovy (12/11/37).

During his years at the Metropolitan and after he left that house, Thomas continued to sing in operetta, starring Blossom Time (1938), The Gypsy Baron (1939), HMS Pinafore (1940), The Chocolate Soldier (1941), Music in the Air (1942) and The Great Waltz (1953 with Dorothy Kirsten).  In 1950, the baritone undertook a concert tour of Australia and during 1952 and 1953 made a farewell concert tour of 50 cities in the United States.  His programs were typically diverse, containing songs by Wolf, Beethoven, Strauss, Carissimi, Faure, Mussorgsky, as well as operatic arias and sentimental ballads.  After his farewell tour he settled in New York City where, for many years he was a respected voice teacher.

This CD re-issue of John Charles Thomas is most generous with selections and accurately reflects the singer's penchant for contrasting repertoire and styles.  Rather than an operatic specialist, John Charles Thomas was, first and foremost, a great concert artist.  With a luxurious timbre, elegance of style, and the diction of a poet, he was the essence of vocal refinement.  Although he was a prodigious recording artist, only a fraction of that output was of operatic music.  Actually, his greatest number of recordings were over 250 hymns recorded in 1949 for his private recording company, Air Arts Incorproated.  These were to be used for radio broadcasts and were not for commercial release.  Of the items he did record, there is much to enjoy and treasure.  As was true of his recitals and concerts, there is something there for everybody.

Considering his success in such diverse repertoire - as witnessed by these recordings - it seems unfortunate that more singers have not followed his example and not limited themselves to one type of musical expresssion.