Wesley Ray Thomas is "The Opera Guy." A graduate of the Boston Conservatory, he's been singing opera in public for nearly twelve years. Bostonist first spotted him online, in the video above, then saught him out and spoke with him about life busking.
Bostonist: What led you into it?
Wes: I started singing in Harvard Square -- 'cause when I first came here, I used to draw portraits. It was kind of a difficult decision for me to decide how I wanted to starve -- you know, either as a opera singer or a visual artist. For a period of time, I tried to do both. At first I'd do it -- I'd sing for about half an hour. I did this in the summer after my freshman year at the conservatory, then I added more and more arias, songs, and stuff.
Everyone else had amps, he said, he just had his voice. He started taking it seriously in '96, bought a boombox and some accompaniement cd's.
He worked for a time with Music Under New York, an 'Arts for transit' outfit. He'd be assigned a place and time to perform, and one would "go there and put up a banner that says, 'Music Under New York,' and once you'd been there for a while, you could put your name on it.'" He performed at South Ferry, and he used to do pretty well there.
Wes: But after 9/11, they pretty much shut that down. I went there, did one verse of Ave Maria, then I was surrounded by cops in army fatigues and lots and lots of dogs.
Bostonist: Wait, wait. One verse? They were such big fans that they surrounded you after one verse?
Wes: And then they threw me out, yeah.
*
Bostonist: How were the reactions to your singing at the outset?
Wes: Harvard Square was easier than the subway, 'cause a crowd can sit there, and sit there for quite a while. So I had to do longer sets to keep their attention! ... If I'm singing on the Blue Line, and there's one train coming after the other and I only have 1 song inbetween trains, 1 or 2, I'm more likely to repeat things, to take it easy on the voice and repeat things that people know.
But Harvard Square is pretty laid back, appreciative and/or accepting, whereas in the subway system, occasionally you'll have someone who's really bothered by someone singing opera. Either they'll have a preconceived notion that opera is wrong to be heard in the subway, that I'm casting my pearls before swine, as it were.
Sometimes there're people who'll just yell and scream to just try and drown me out. What's really annoying is that while I'm singing they'll come and stand within 10 feet of me and have very loud conversations trying to talk over my singing.
You don't have that when you're singing outside. Though you can get bullied out of spots, too. That happened to me a few times in New York. A brass/jazz quartet set up in Central Park once a few feet away from me, because this guy acted as if he couldn't tell what I was doing. He said, Oh, are you performing?
He lost his place to stay in NYC, as his friend there had gone off and found a girl, and so he'd head down on his own, pay for a room at the Y, "and try to make enough money to afford that while singing in the subway."
Bostonist: What's the flipside of that, though? What's the great stuff?
Wes: Oh, yeah. I wouldn't do it if it wasn't great. I met a guy who was of the top casting directors on Broadway. Unfortunately, I'd just woken up from a nap, so he thought I was a real bass that had really good high notes. (Laughs.)
Bostonist: And you couldn't nap often enough?
Wes: I wasn't as well rested when I auditioned for him in front of Broadway, no. It was kind of funny. It was more a show that closed in two weeks, so it wouldn't've been worth my while to move down to New York. I may be singing again with Music Under New York. I talked to the guy from MUNY. He's a little on the fence about whether it's been too long since I've talked to him to let me back in. I thought about re-auditioning. If he doesn't let me back into the program, I'll just re-audition in the spring. I've a friend to stay with this time.
Bostonist: Keeping him away from certain sections of town ... Directing his activities ...
Wes: Well, this friend is older and female and has a couch in the basement. But that's good enough.
He had auditioned for Fanueil Hall, but didn't get it. They said he was too big for the side-street area, but not loud enough for the main area, right in front of Market.
Wes: I think they were bothered too that I pretend to die. Because I do an aria where I die at the end and I -- [Smacks his hands together] -- down on the stage. And then rise again to sing Largo al factotum from Barber of Seville. 'cause that was my audition. Death of Rodrigo. It's a great aria. It's just, you die. You've gotta die. If you do it, you have to die. You can slump like this against the piano -- and if you're in a tuxedo, that's acceptable.
Bostonist: The patrician way of snuffing it.
Wes: Yeah. Yeah. If I'm wearing my suit, I tend to sit down and slump over; but if I'm not wearing my suit, I drop to my knees and fall flat-out dead. It's a fun aria. And as I was waking up one time in a subway in New York, I had this little kid, about seven or eight years old, black kid, he high fives me as I'm coming out of a death. He was so impressed that I died.
Bostonist: You sold it to him.
Wes: Yeah. I sold it. It's a big earner, that one. People like to see somebody die. It's a little scary at the beginning, because people are like, "Are you okay? Are you okay? Do we need to call an ambulance?" It can throw me just a little bit sometimes if someone's really in my face, worried about me. 'cause I tell the audience he's just been shot, but then people on the subway platform come down and they didn't hear that part.
Bostonist: So there's a bunch of people applauding someone collapsed on the floor of the subway?
Wes: (Laughs.)
Wes offered up a few recommendations of his own.
1. Dmitri Hvorostovsky
"One of my favorite baritones currently performing. But I saw a performance of his where he didn't hit the high A's. And I'm thinking, why didn't he hit them? And they're optional, sure, but they're done. People expect to hear them. He could've just been having an off-night, didn't want to hurt himself."
2. Leonard Warren.
Video courtesy of usernameFAUST.
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