Tomars, Adolph Siegfried

Sociologist and educator, Adolph S. Tomars (1908-1985), was the son of Semion Tomars (c. 1876-1943), a former concert singer, who was associated with the multifaceted American theatrical manager and impresario, Oscar Hammerstein I (1846-1919).

Hammerstein began his career in the cigar industry. He invented devices related to cigarmaking and he also edited the U.S. Tobacco Journal. Hammerstein used the fortune he had made in the tobacco industry to finance his various theatrical ventures. After several unsuccessful projects, he finally realized his ambition of presenting grand opera in English at popular prices, by opening his (second) Manhattan Opera House on Thirty-fourth Street in 1906, competing successfully with the Metropolitan Opera. After 1908, Semion Tomars served as stage manager for the Manhattan Opera House. In 1910, Hammerstein was paid a large sum by the Metropolitan Opera to cease producing opera in New York for ten years. He used the money to go to England, where he opened the London Opera House in 1911 to compete with the Royal Opera House; Tomars also served as stage manager for that theater. Although the London Opera House failed after its first and only season, Hammerstein returned to New York where he built another new theater. Tomars remained associated with Hammerstein until the latter's death. Tomars later directed productions for several opera companies.

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