Mostyn Thomas (born Thomas James Thomas) (January 14, 1896 – August 17, 1984)
was a Welsh
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
tic
baritone, prominent in the first half of the 20th century.
Early life
He was born in
Blaina
Blaina ( cy, Blaenau ) is a small town, situated deep within the South Wales Valleys between Brynmawr and Abertillery in the unitary authority of Blaenau Gwent, ancient parish of Aberystruth, preserved county of Gwent and historic county o ...
,
Monmouthshire, to Thomas and Ann. At the age of 13 he went to work underground in the local
colliery
Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...
.
Voice
His voice was discovered at the
Ammanford Eisteddfod
In Welsh culture, an ''eisteddfod'' is an institution and festival with several ranked competitions, including in poetry and music.
The term ''eisteddfod'', which is formed from the Welsh morphemes: , meaning 'sit', and , meaning 'be', means, ac ...
, and the local community of Blaina collected money for him to be trained at
La Scala Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
. Mostyn has his debut as
Tonio Tonio may refer to:
* ''Tonio'' (film), a 2016 Dutch film
*Tonio (software), a Vocaloid vocal
*Tonio Kröger, a novella by Thomas Mann
* ''Tonio Kröger'' (film), a film based on the novella
*Tonio (app), an audio-decoding-app
* Tonio (name), per ...
in
Pagliacci (
Leoncavallo
Ruggero (or Ruggiero) Leoncavallo ( , , ; 23 April 18579 August 1919) was an Italian opera composer and librettist. Although he produced numerous operas and other songs throughout his career it is his opera '' Pagliacci'' (1892) that remained h ...
) in 1929.
He sang leading baritone roles all over the world, settled in America and married a wealthy American widow. On February 13, 1923, Mostyn Thomas sang
Dafydd y Garreg Wen
Dafydd y Garreg Wen is a traditional Welsh musical air and folk song.
There is a tradition that the tune was composed by David Owen (1712–1741), a harpist and composer who lived near Porthmadog in Caernarfonshire. He was known locally as ''D ...
to inaugurate the first radio broadcast by
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...