Dynamic duo: director Adele Thomas and creative producer Sarah Crabtree to take over as WNO’s General Director and CEO

Adele Thomas

Welsh National Opera has announced that opera and theatre director Adele Thomas and creative producer Sarah Crabtree will jointly take up the role of WNO’s General Director and CEO in January 2025, following on from Aidan Lang who stepped down at the end of 2023.

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

Thomas’ opera directing has included Handel’s Semele at Glyndebourne, Verdi’s Il Trovatore at the Royal Opera House, a vividly theatrical production Vivaldi’s Bajazet for Irish National Opera in 2022 [see my review] and a brilliant re-invention of Handel’s Berenice for London Handel Festival and the Royal Opera in 2019 [see my review].

Sarah Crabtree is Creative Producer and head of Linbury Theatre (opera) at The Royal Opera House, where highlights include overseeing the world premieres of Mark Anthony Turnage’s Coraline [see our review] at the Barbican, Philip Venable’s 4.48 Psychosis [see my review], Laura Bowler’s The Blue Woman and Oliver Leith’s Last Days. 

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

Many will remember Sarah Crabtree from her time at Opera Holland Park where she worked from 2006 to 2015, becoming Associate 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.