Biography
Versatile tenor Thomas Blondelle commands a wide-ranging repertory that stretches from operetta through the heroic tenor parts in operas by Wagner and Richard Strauss. He maintains a longstanding affiliation with the Deutsche Oper Berlin. His extensive discography encompasses seldom-performed scores, among them Ferdinand Ries’s opera Die Räuberbraut. A 2024 CPO release captured him in Franz Lehár’s operetta Schön ist die Welt.
Born in Bruges, Belgium, on October 3, 1982, Blondelle trained at the city’s Stedelijk Conservatorium in voice, piano, and chamber music while also pursuing musicology at KU Leuven Catholic University. Early recognition arrived with second prize at the 2011 Concours Musical Reine Elisabeth. Still a student, he made his stage debut in Udo Zimmermann’s contemporary opera Weißen Rose at La Monnaie in Brussels. That same year he participated in a filmed production of Richard Strauss’s Die Liebe der Danae, and in 2012 he issued his first solo recording, Francis Poulenc’s song cycle Banalités, on the Fuga Libera label.
An expanding international profile soon took him to opera houses in Luxembourg, Antwerp, and Toulon. After several seasons at the Braunschweig State Theater, he joined the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 2009 and has since been heard regularly on German stages, though engagements have also brought him to the Amsterdam Opera, the Opéra national du Rhin in Strasbourg, and Cincinnati Opera. His operatic roles encompass both Viennese operetta and the Heldentenor parts of Wagner and Richard Strauss. In concert he has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Orchestre de Paris, and the Saito Kinen Festival Orchestra in Japan, and he has performed at the BBC Proms in London and the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland. Among his recordings is the 2018 world premiere of Aribert Reimann’s opera L’Invisible. In 2024 conductor Marius Burkert led him in a new account of Lehár’s rarely staged operetta Schön ist die Welt.
Born in Bruges, Belgium, on October 3, 1982, Blondelle trained at the city’s Stedelijk Conservatorium in voice, piano, and chamber music while also pursuing musicology at KU Leuven Catholic University. Early recognition arrived with second prize at the 2011 Concours Musical Reine Elisabeth. Still a student, he made his stage debut in Udo Zimmermann’s contemporary opera Weißen Rose at La Monnaie in Brussels. That same year he participated in a filmed production of Richard Strauss’s Die Liebe der Danae, and in 2012 he issued his first solo recording, Francis Poulenc’s song cycle Banalités, on the Fuga Libera label.
An expanding international profile soon took him to opera houses in Luxembourg, Antwerp, and Toulon. After several seasons at the Braunschweig State Theater, he joined the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 2009 and has since been heard regularly on German stages, though engagements have also brought him to the Amsterdam Opera, the Opéra national du Rhin in Strasbourg, and Cincinnati Opera. His operatic roles encompass both Viennese operetta and the Heldentenor parts of Wagner and Richard Strauss. In concert he has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Orchestre de Paris, and the Saito Kinen Festival Orchestra in Japan, and he has performed at the BBC Proms in London and the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland. Among his recordings is the 2018 world premiere of Aribert Reimann’s opera L’Invisible. In 2024 conductor Marius Burkert led him in a new account of Lehár’s rarely staged operetta Schön ist die Welt.
Albums
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