Thomas Stewart grew up in San Saba, Texas, and was trained in music, drama,
and electronics before leaving for New York in the 1950s.  There he studied
at the Julliard School, met and married soprano Evelyn Lear, and began his
singing career.  After Fulbright scholarships took the Stewarts to Berlin in
1957, he began a long association with the Deutsche Oper Berlin and with the
German operatic repertory.  He began singing the great Heldenbaryton  roles
at Bayreuth in 1960.  He sang all of the leading Wagnerian parts at Bayreuth
and in the leading opera houses of the world over the next decades with
particular success in the roles of Wotan in The Ring and Hans Sachs in Die
Meistersinger von Nuernberg.  He and Evelyn Lear are now retired to the
Washington area where they are active on the musical scene.  He appeared in
the speaking part of Pasha Selim in the Washington Opera's 1999 production
of Mozart's Die Entfuehrung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio).