Opera Southwest’s artistic director first encountered baritone Todd Thomas in 2002, during Anthony Barrese’s first season at Sarasota Opera. Todd was singing Enrico in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, and he thought Todd was extraordinary.
The following season, Todd sang the title role in both versions of Verdi’s Macbeth. One Macbeth is ordinarily sufficient to exhaust a baritone. Two suggests either an exceptionally robust constitution or a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of leisure.
Over the next twenty years their paths crossed repeatedly. Anthony heard Todd’s debut with another company in La traviata, encountered him in Tosca, and watched him become one of Sarasota Opera’s most dependable leading baritones. Todd’s career, meanwhile, took him to the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and major houses around the world.
Remarkably, despite two decades of professional overlap and friendship, they didn’t actually work together until Todd came to Opera Southwest for our New Year’s Eve concert in 2022.
Anthony describes Todd as one of his personal musical heroes – high praise indeed.
Todd returns to OSW as Alfio in Cavalleria rusticana, a role that ought to be relatively straightforward for a man whose repertoire includes Iago, Scarpia, Rigoletto, and Macbeth. Alfio, after all, is a hardworking fellow whose principal misfortune is discovering that his wife has been sleeping with somebody else. He responds by killing the man responsible, which is not a particularly constructive approach to marital difficulties but does bring the opera to a decisive conclusion.
For an artist who has spent decades portraying some of opera’s most accomplished villains, playing a man with an entirely legitimate grievance must be something of a change. Some things are worth waiting for.
Learn more about Todd Thomas here
Cavalleria runs October 25-November 1, 2026
