Thompson began her professional performing career co-producing and starring in a 1990 production of Malcolm Williamson's The Growing Castle[1] directed by Barrie Kosky, followed by Kosky's staged version of Handel's Belshazzar in the role of Nitocris, for which Thompson received a Green Room Award nomination for Best Female Principal Artist in Opera.
Thompson created the principal soprano roles in two world premieres of new Australian operas: Clare Clairmont in Mer de glace, with music by Richard Meale and libretto by David Malouf.
[4] Thompson sang Helena in the original cast of Australian director Baz Luhrmann's A Midsummer Night's Dream (Benjamin Britten), designed by Catherine Martin for Opera Australia in 1993.
[citation needed] In 2013, Thompson re-joined Opera Australia as a freelance principal soprano, covering the role of Sieglinde in Wagner's Die Walküre and Dritte Norn in Götterdämmerung as part of the company's first Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle in Melbourne.
In 1989, Thompson received a Green Room Award nomination for Principal Soprano (Nitocris, Handel's Belshazzar – Treason of Images Company).