The new year marks the start of a new tenure for Adele Thomas and Sarah Crabtree as they jointly take up the role of Co-CEOs/General Directors of Welsh National Opera.
Internationally-acclaimed theatre and opera director Adele Thomas recently directed WNO’s new production of Verdi’s Rigoletto, while visionary producer Sarah Crabtree joins the Company from The Royal Ballet and Opera, where she was Creative Producer and Head of Linbury Theatre (opera).
Adele and Sarah take up the role in a job-share of the truest sense, with equal oversight of the artistic direction and management of the Company.
Speaking about their new role, Adele Thomas and Sarah Crabtree said:
‘Welsh National Opera emerged out of the igniting friction between two cultural forces: the post-war spirit of democracy and the Welsh grassroots obsession with the human voice in song. Those revolutionary entities form the touchstone of how we want to reimagine WNO as the opera company of the future. With its roots in Wales but its reach and impact beyond we want WNO to be a pioneering, brave and contemporary arts organisation within the UK live art ecology, searching for increased diversity on both our stages and in our audiences and questioning what opera can be in the modern world.
‘Whilst the future for opera in Wales and the UK has never looked more perilous, with moments of crisis come huge opportunity; what a privilege it is for us to be taking this great Company forward into its next chapter. Highlights of the upcoming season include a return to Swansea for the first time in a decade and a much-anticipated new production of Peter Grimes, complete with a world class cast, including some of the finest Welsh artists of their generations.’
Plans for WNO’s 2025/2026 season are due to be announced shortly, which will be the Company’s 80th anniversary year.
ENDS
Notes to Editors
‘Croeso’ is the Welsh word meaning ‘Welcome’
Welsh National Opera is the national opera company for Wales, funded by the Arts Councils of Wales and England to provide large-scale opera, concerts and outreach across Wales and to major cities in the English regions. We endeavour to provide transformative experiences through our education and outreach programme and our award-winning digital projects. We work with our partners to discover and nurture young operatic talent, and we aim to show future generations that opera is a rewarding, relevant and universal art form with the power to affect and inspire.
Adele Thomas was born and raised in Port Talbot in South Wales. Adele is a recipient of the RTYDS bursary for future artistic leaders and an invitee to the National Theatre Studio young directors’ course in 2005. She is also an Honorary Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.
Opera work includes Semele (Glyndebourne); Il trovatore (Opernhaus Zürich and ROH); In the Realms of Sorrow (London Handel Festival/Stone Nest); Bajazet (INO and ROH); Apollo e Dafne and Berenice (ROH); Così fan tutte (Northern Ireland Opera). Both Bajazet and Berenice were nominated for the Best New Opera Production award at the Olivier Awards.
Theatre credits include The Memory of Water (Nottingham Playhouse);The Weir (ETT); Macbeth (Tobacco Factory); Eyam, The Oreseia, The Knight of the Burning Pestle and Thomas Tallis (Shakespeare’s Globe); The Golden Hours (Royal Court Theatre’s Unusual Unions plays); The Bloody Ballad and The Forsythe Sisters (Gagglebabble); The Passion and The Passion: One Year On (Project Associate, National Theatre Wales); Under Milk Wood (Royal & Derngate).
Sarah Crabtree has been Creative Producer for The Royal Opera since 2017, responsible for programming and producing in the Linbury Theatre and for Royal Opera productions away from Covent Garden at venues such as Shakespeare’s Globe and the Roundhouse. Sarah worked for Opera Holland Park from 2006 to 2015 and became Associate Producer to James Clutton there in 2012. At Opera Holland Park, she delivered the company’s summer season, and commissioned Opera Holland Park’s first ever new work: Will Todd’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 2012.
Highlights of her career in Covent Garden include overseeing the world premieres of Mark Anthony Turnage’s Coraline at the Barbican, Philip Venable’s 4.48 Psychosis, Laura Bowler's The Blue Woman and Oliver Leith’s Last Days. She has also been responsible for The Royal Opera’s research and development programme, which supports the development of new work and emerging artists. A passionate advocate for equity in the arts, Sarah founded Engender in 2019, opera’s first network for women and non-binary people with the aim of delivering transformational change in gender equality in opera. Sarah is a change partner with Ramps on the Moon, working towards mainstream cultural change for disabled people in the arts, embedding anti-ableism across the sector. Sarah joined The Royal Opera as a Senior Producer in April 2015.
WNO production images are available for download at wno.org.uk/press
Further information on WNO can be found at wno.org.uk
For more information, photos or interviews please contact:
Christina Blakeman, Communications Manager
Rachel Bowyer, Head of Communications Rachel.bowyer@wno.org.uk