Arthur Goring Thomas

Arthur Goring Thomas (10 November 1850 –20 March 1892) was an English composer.

He was the youngest son of Freeman Thomas and Amelia, daughter of Colonel Thomas Frederick. He was born at Ratton Park, Sussex, and educated at Haileybury College. He was intended for the Civil Service, but delicate health interfered with his studies, and in 1873 he went to Paris to cultivate the musical talent he had displayed from an early age. Here he studied for two years with Émile Durand. In 1875 he returned to England, and in 1877 entered the Royal Academy of Music, where for three years he studied under Ebenezer Prout and Arthur Sullivan, twice winning the Lucas medal for composition. At a later period he received some instruction in orchestration from Max Bruch. His first published composition was a song, Le Roi Henri, which appeared in 1871.

An early comic opera, Don Braggadocio (libretto by his brother, C. I. Thomas), was apparently unfinished; some of the music in it was afterwards used for The Golden Web. A selection from his second opera, The Light of the Harem (libretto by Clifford Harrison), was performed at the Royal Academy of Music on 7 November 1879, with such success that Carl Rosa commissioned him to write Esmeralda (libretto by Theophile Marzials and Alberto Randegger), dedicated to Pauline Viardot, produced at Drury Lane on 26 March 1883. (Creator cast: Georgina Burns (Esmeralda): Barton McGuckin (Phoebus): William Ludwig (Frollo): Leslie Crotty (Quasimodo): Clara Perry (Fleur-de-Lys): Leah Don (Lois): J.H. Stilliard (Chevreuse): Ben Davies (Gringoire): G.H. Snazelle (Clopin).) This contained the very successful aria "O, vision entrancing". Two years later the opera was given (in German) at Cologne and Hamburg, and in 1890 (in French) at Covent Garden.

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