Adele Thomas

Welsh Nationwide Opera has introduced that opera and theatre director Adele Thomas and artistic producer Sarah Crabtree will collectively take up the position of WNO’s Basic Director and CEO in January 2025, following on from Aidan Lang who stepped down on the finish of 2023.

Welsh-born Adele Thomas is directing WNO’s new manufacturing of Verdi’s Rigoletto (for which plans have been already in place) which premieres at Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff this September earlier than touring to Llandudno, Plymouth, Oxford and Southampton. 

Thomas’ opera directing has included Handel’s Semele at Glyndebourne, Verdi’s Il Trovatore on the Royal Opera Home, a vividly theatrical manufacturing Vivaldi’s Bajazet for Irish Nationwide Opera in 2022 [see my review] and an excellent re-invention of Handel’s Berenice for London Handel Pageant and the Royal Opera in 2019 [see my review].

Sarah Crabtree is Inventive Producer and head of Linbury Theatre (opera) at The Royal Opera Home, the place highlights embrace overseeing the world premieres of Mark Anthony Turnage’s Coraline [see our review] on the Barbican, Philip Venable’s 4.48 Psychosis [see my review], Laura Bowler’s The Blue Lady and Oliver Leith’s Final Days. 

Sarah Crabtree (© 2023 ROH. Photographed by Charlie Clift)

Many will bear in mind Sarah Crabtree from her time at Opera Holland Park the place she labored from 2006 to 2015, turning into Affiliate Producer to James Clutton there in 2012; she commissioned Opera Holland Park’s first ever new work, Will Todd’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 2012.