Bowman, James (Thomas) (1941– )

English countertenor. He made his stage debut in London in 1967, as Britten's Oberon; the Voice of Apollo in Death in Venice (which he sang at Aldeburgh in 1973) was written for him. He appeared at Glyndebourne 1970–74 as Endimione in the Cavalli-Leppard Calisto. He sang the Priest Confessor and God the Father in the first performance of Maxwell Davies's Taverner, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, in 1972, and co-created the role of Astron in Tippett's The Ice Break in 1977. His Handel repertory includes Giulio Cesare, Tamerlano, Xerxes, and Scipione; he sang Oberon at Aix-en-Provence in 1992, and Barak in Handel's Deborah at the 1993 London Promenade concerts.