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According to Wikipedia a fictionalized version was portrayed on Bonanza. If you like, check out the video on Bonanza below.
Thomas to Bowers (singer)
Thomas Bowers (ca. 1826–1885), also known as "The Colored Mario", was an African American concert artist. His title was due to the vocal similarity of his voice to Giovanni Mario, an Italian opera singer. Bowers toured with Elizabeth Greenfield in 1854 under the management of Colonel J.H. Wood. He was a teacher as well as a career soloist. He is the brother of professional singer Sarah Sedgewick Bowers, "the Colored Nightingale".
A fictionalized version of Thomas Bowers was portrayed by actor William Marshall in a 1964 episode of Bonanza entitled Enter Thomas Bowers.
Thomas Bowers was born in 1836 in Philadelphia. As a youngster, he showed a desire to learn music and his father who was the warden of St. Thomas P.E. Church in Philadelphia desired that his children learn music. He got a piano and then an instructor to teach music to his children. Thomas learned to play the piano and organ from his older brother who had been taught how to play those instruments. Thomas' sister Sarah was known also for her singing and was called the "Colored Nightingale" and Thomas was known as "The Colored Mario" and the "American Mario" for his similarity in voice to the famed Italian opera singer Giovanni Mario. Thomas was a tenor. His voice was described as having a wonderful power and beauty, and his range was nearly two octaves. On the stage, he was said to move with grace and had a strong stage presence. In the episode of Bonanza titled Enter Thomas Bowers, Thomas was portrayed by operatic singer and actor William Marshall who was a bass. At least the casting department found an opera singer like Thomas and they do resemble each other somewhat.
In Enter Thomas Bowers, Thomas was referred to as a freedman when in fact he was born free.It was highly unlikely that anyone in the United States would ever have thought too that Thomas Bowers was an escaped slave as was portrayed in Enter Thomas Bowers. He was famous. He went on tour with the most famous black singer of the time who was also his teacher: Elizabeth Greenfield, "The Black Swan" in 1854 before she returned to set up a school for opera singers.
Writing to a friend, he thus speaks of the principle that governed him: “What induced me more than any thing else to appear in public was to give the lie to 'negro serenaders' (minstrels), and to show to the world that colored men and women could sing classical music as well as the members of the other race by whom they had been so terribly vilified.” The Boston Journal 1876
The first tour Mr. Bowers did was of New York and Canadian cities as far west as Montreal under the management of Colonel J. H. Wood. In Canada he helped make performances there more available for black patrons. A Doctor Brown had purchased six reserved first-class seats. When the theatre manager was going to refuse to seat those six blacks in the first class section, Thomas Bowers threatened not to perform at all. The tickets were honored and it was no longer an issue for blacks to sit in first class seats in Canada. "Mr. Bowers, during his career, has sung in most of the Eastern and Middle States; and at one time he even invaded the slavery−cursed regions of Maryland. He sang in Baltimore, the papers of which city were forced to accord to him high merit as a vocalist." The Boston Journal 1876
There is no mention anywhere of a tour of Italy nor of any tour of a state or territory west of the Mississippi with most of his performances in New York and Philadelphia. In Enter Thomas Bowers, he supposedly had returned from a successful tour of Italy and was invited to perform in Virginia City. He would have been quite young at that point and not the middle aged man portrayed in the episode. Adam talks of his dismay at the Dred Scott decision which would put the episode in 1857. Thomas was 21 years old at that time. He achieved his greater success and fame when he was older, and then turned to teaching others.
sources: Music and Some Highly Musical People; The African American Art Song Alliance; The Museum of the African-American Diva; Dialogues on Opera and the African American Experience; Pegasus Opera Company; The Music of Black Americans: a History;
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