Death of Met tenor, 60
RIPWe have seen reports of the death last month of Stephen O’Mara, an American tenor who sang leading roles in many world opera houses.
No cause has been given.
A Beverly Sills protege at City Opera, among the career highlights he cited was an Aida at the pyramids in Egypt and Tom Rakewell in The Rake’s Progress at Glyndebourne.
Beverly Silly is right (:
Ms. Sills was not only a fine singer and a great support of opera and opera singers but a fine human being. Mocking her is shameful.
Beverly Silly???????? And you want us to take this site seriously?
I knew him back in the 80s when he was in the Met chorus. A wonderful chorus tenor (I think especially noticeable in the Horne “Italiana” telecast). He left for greener pastures. The idea that he even touched “Aida” and “Forza” boggles the mind. But then, I can’t grasp the idea of David Rendall as Othello either, so what do I know? Not every house is Met-sized, obviously…
Met tenor? The Metropolitan Opera Database has no record of his performing there.
Check again. I just searched for “O’Mara” at http://archives.metoperafamily.org/archives/frame.htm and it turned up a number of performances in which he sang, beginning with an appearance in Der Rosenkavalier in October 1986.
Right you are. I don’t know why my search was unsuccessful. The Met database is quite unforgiving of misspellings, so maybe that was my problem.
Met Performance] CID:352120
Aida {1097} Matinee ed. Metropolitan Opera House: 10/20/2007.
(Debut: Micaela Carosi)
Metropolitan Opera House
October 20, 2007 Matinee
AIDA {1097}
Giuseppe Verdi–Antonio Ghislanzoni
Aida………………..Micaela Carosi [Debut]
Radamès……………..Stephen O’Mara
Amneris……………..Olga Borodina
Amonasro…………….Juan Pons
Ramfis………………Vitalij Kowaljow
King………………..Reinhard Hagen
Messenger……………Michael Myers
Priestess……………Jennifer Check
Dance……………….Linda Gelinas
Dance……………….Annemarie Lucania
Dance……………….Norbert De La Cruz
Conductor……………Kazushi Ono
Production…………..Sonja Frisell
Set designer…………Gianni Quaranta
Costume designer……..Dada Saligeri
Lighting designer…….Gil Wechsler
Choreographer………..Rodney Griffin
Stage Director……….Stephen Pickover
He had a lovely voice. The excerpt from Forza is excellent.
How about a simple “Rest In Peace” and cut your petty crap.
He was a very good tenor with a beautiful sound. He sang in the Met Chorus and can be found in the Met database singing Parpignol and the Messenger in Trovatore. He later returned for two Radames. He sang at City Opera and in Europe in leading roles.
However, the age 60 cannot be right. He was at least 10 years older and perhaps more. The Operawire obituary says he earned his master’s from Fordham in social work in 1973 (which would have made him 11 then).
I wonder what caused that? The 4th perhaps?
Do you know how to use the Met’s database?
I entered his name and found him credited with 46 performances:
Between 1986 and 1988 he sang multiple performances of:
Ein Tierhändler (an animal vendor) in “Der Rosenkavalier” (two lines totalling 26 words)
Parpignol in “La bohème” (one line of five words, repeated once)
A croupier in “Manon” (four words, repeated thrice)
The messenger in “Il trovatore” (eight words)
And then in October 2007, two performances as Radamés in “Aida” (!) with Micaela Carosi, Olga Borodina, and Juan Pons, conducted by Kazuski Ono.