Welsh tenor Elgan Llŷr Thomas studied at the Royal Northern College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama He is an English National Opera Harewood Artist and a former Scottish Opera Emerging Artist.
In the 2022/23 season he sings Rinuccio, Young Lover Il trittico for Scottish Opera, Dr Richardson Breaking the Waves for Opera Comique and Prunier La Rondine for Opera North. He also performs Tippett’s A Child of Our Time with Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and recitals at Wigmore Hall, London.
Recent operatic engagements include First Noble of Brabant Lohengrin (Royal Opera House Covent Garden); Ralph Rackstraw HMS Pinafore (English National Opera); Lysander A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Scottish Opera); Cassio Otello and Steuermann Der fliegende Holländer (Grange Park Opera); Fenton Falstaff, Nemorino L’elisir d’amore, Dr Richardson in the European premiere of Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves, Brighella Ariadne auf Naxos and Titorelli/Flogger/Berthold The Trial (Scottish Opera); Gonzalve L’heure Espagnole (a filmed production for Grange Park Opera); Nanki-Poo The Mikado and Normanno Lucia di Lammermoor (English National Opera); Johnny Inkslinger Paul Bunyan (ENO at Wilton’s Music Hall); Prologue/Peter Quint The Turn of the Screw (ENO at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); Almaviva Il barbiere di Siviglia (Opéra national de Bordeaux and Théâtre des Champs-Elysées); Ernesto Don Pasquale, Lindoro L’italiana in Algeri and Almaviva Il barbiere di Siviglia (Mananan International Festival); Tom Rakewell The Rake’s Progress (Klarafestival, Brussels, Aldeburgh Festival, and Ojai Festival, California); Brighella Ariadne auf Naxos (Opera Holland Park); Fenton Falstaff (Cambridge Philharmonic Society); cover Lensky Eugene Onegin, cover Binet Vert-Vert and cover Selimo Maometto Secondo (Garsington Opera); and Spoletta Tosca (Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod with the Orchestra of WNO, Sir Bryn Terfel and Kristine Opolais). Roles while studying included Florindo Le donne curiose and Male Chorus The Rape of Lucretia (GSMD); title role Albert Herring and Lampwick The Adventures of Pinocchio (RNCM); and Johnny Inkslinger Paul Bunyan (Welsh National Youth Opera’s Britten Centenary production).
Equally in demand on the concert platform, his recent engagements include Verdi’s Requiem with Dundee Choral Union, Handel’s Messiah (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall); Mozart’s Requiem (Danish National Symphony Orchestra); Orbin in Elgar’s Caractacus (Opera North Orchestra, cond. Martyn Brabbins); Jenkins’s The Armed Man, Mass for Peace (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, cond. Sir Karl Jenkins); Tippett’s A Child of Our Time (Dartington International Summer Festival, cond. Paul McCreesh); a concert with Sir Bryn Terfel at Bangor University and a Gala concert with the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra in China.
His discography includes Orbin in Elgar’s Caractacus for Hyperion (Opera North Orchesta, cond. Martyn Brabbins); songs by Huw Watkins and William Mathias on Taliesin’s Songbook (Tŷ Cerdd); an album of Welsh Songs called Llwybrau’n Cân, and songs by Gareth Glyn on Caneuon Gareth Glyn (both for SAIN).
He is the winner of numerous awards, including the 2015 Stuart Burrows International Voice Award; the 2015 Kerry-Keane Prize and Audience Prize at the Les Azuriales Opera Young Artists Programme and has had considerable success at the National Eisteddfod of Wales. He was also a recipient of a 2017/18 Opera Awards Foundation Bursary and was one of the first recipients of a Study Award from the Bryn Terfel Foundation.
