The siren song of opera first called to Russell Thomas when he was an 8-year-old boy in Cutler Bay and heard a radio broadcast of Weber’s “Oberon,” starring Placido Domingo and Birgit Nilsson. “I was intrigued by the sound these people were making,” Thomas says. “And I wanted to know how they did it.”

After that, Thomas began to take his choir singing in school seriously. When what was then the Greater Miami Opera was handing out dress rehearsal comp tickets for students, he made sure he was there. He went on to the New World School of the Arts, where he was classified as a tenor. Now, he has a rising career in the world of opera, perhaps most notably as the singer for whom John Adams created the role of the Prince in his opera “A Flowering Tree.”

This Saturday night, Thomas returns to Miami for an art song recital under the auspices of Orchestra Miami. Accompanied by pianist Elaine Rinaldi, Thomas will sing pieces by Beethoven (“Adelaide”), Verdi (“Stornello”), Britten (“Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo”), Vaughan Williams (“Songs of Travel”) and three songs by the short-lived, early 20th-century American composer Charles Tomlinson Griffes (“Three Songs of Fiona MacLeod”).

He’ll also include two of the songs of the Sicilian composer Stefano Donaudy (“Quanto ti rivedro and O del mio amato ben”) and one by the Italo-English salon composer Paolo Tosti (“L’alba separa dalla luce l’ombra”).

If you were listening to the Metropolitan Opera’s broadcast of Berg’s “Wozzeck” a couple Saturday afternoons ago, you heard Thomas in the role of Andres, Wozzeck’s friend. That performance was conducted by the Met’s longtime artistic director, James Levine, whom Thomas considers a good mentor, especially when it comes time to sing in one of the world’s great opera houses.

“It’s a nerve-wracking experience, but if you have the right conductor, it makes it go by a lot easier,” Thomas says of Levine. “He’s been a great friend of mine.”

Thomas sang Stravinsky’s “Oedipus Rex” in January with Levine and the Boston Symphony. After Saturday night’s recital at the First Presbyterian Church of Miami, Thomas sings the tenor part in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Dallas Symphony, essays Pinkerton in a semi-staged version of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” with the Atlanta Symphony and reprises the Prince for “A Flowering Tree” in Cincinnati.

Working with Adams also was an honor for Thomas.

“How many singers can say they had something written for them by Adams, by the greatest American modern composer? To get manuscripts from him every month, with more and more music in them,” he says. “He listened to my voice. It’s a very challenging role, and he listened to all the extremes of my voice and wrote it for me.”

Adams and “A Flowering Tree” director Peter Sellars, “have become such good friends. They’re like family,” says Thomas, 34, who currently lives in Atlanta. He’ll be working with them again on their newest project, destined for Los Angeles, called “The Gospel According to the Other Mary,” which will be a sequel to Adams’ oratorio “El Niño.”

Late in January, Thomas won a first prize at the Francsec Viñas Competition in Barcelona singing arias from Verdi’s “Rigoletto” (“Parmi veder le lagrime”) and “Macbeth” (“Ah, la paterna mano”). He says his voice is trending in the direction of dramatic tenor roles, such as the ones Verdi composed. Soon, he’ll be adding tenor roles in “Don Carlo” and “Simon Boccanegra,” and, in about 10 years, he’ll do the title role in “Otello” (he’s already done Cassio) — but he’ll try to get there “as smoothly as possible.”

“Most companies are hiring more lyric voices, lighter voices to do heavier repertoire,” he says. But there are good dramatic voices coming up that can stand the tougher strain. “There are quite a few people that can sing them, but they’re going slowly … ‘Otello’ is the ultimate for where my voice is going. It’s a matter of time.”

Saturday’s recital includes the Griffes set, a relative rarity. Written in 1918, it’s set to poems by Fiona MacLeod, the pseudonym of the Scottish writer William Sharp.

“The words are about getting older, and love, those types of things. These are all things that people can relate to,” he says, though Griffes’ lush, impressionistic style, heavy on the piano, won’t leave the audience “with a tune you’re going to whistle after you hear them.”

Thomas also is offering the Vaughan Williams cycle – “Songs of Travel” – because of familiarity, though many people will know the songs because of their popularity with baritones, such as Bryn Terfel. But the songs are originally written for the tenor voice, he says.

“These are very masculine songs,” Thomas says. “The Griffes songs are very feminine, but with Vaughan Williams, there’s a manly feeling.” That same feeling is in the composer’s song cycle “On Wenlock Edge,” he says, a work that Thomas has sung many times.

Back in Miami for the recital, Thomas points out he was able to pursue his interest in opera because of the educational programs available to him when he was young, something he worries about today.

“More and more schools are cutting back their music programs. It’s a sad thing,” he says. “What would have happened to me? I would never have been able to be a singer.”

Russell Thomas appears at 8 p.m. Saturday at the First Presbyterian Church of Miami, 609 Brickell Ave. Tickets are $30 for general admission. The concert is followed by a reception ($20 per person), with proceeds benefiting Orchestra Miami. Call 305-274-2103 or visit www.orchestramiami.org.