Elgan Llŷr Thomas

Welsh tenor, Elgan Llŷr Thomas joined Scottish Opera as an Emerging Artist this season and made his company and role début as Nemorino in their touring production of The Elixir of Love. 

Originally from North Wales, Elgan graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and subsequently completed his M.A. degree at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He completed his studies on the Guildhall School of Music and Drama's prestigious Opera Course in 2016, where his studies were kindly supported by the George and Charlotte Balfour Award and a Help Musicians UK Sybil Tutton Opera Award.

Elgan won the 2015 Stuart Burrows International Voice Award, the Kerry-Keane Prize and the Audience Prize at the 2015 Les Azuriales Opera Young Artists programme in Nice. In May 2012, Elgan became one of the first recipients of a Study Award from the Bryn Terfel Foundation. He followed this by winning four major competitions for under twenty five years of age at the 2012 National Eisteddfod of Wales, namely the Blue Riband Osborne Roberts Memorial Prize, the Operatic Solo Competition, the Welsh Solo Competition and the Music Theatre Solo Competition. He was also awarded the David Lloyd and Jean Skidmore Memorial prize for the most promising tenor at the Eisteddfod and the London Male Choir Scholarship. During his first year at the RNCM, he won the Elsie Thurston Prize and represented the College at the Kathleen Ferrier Bursary Award in October 2009 and the Clonter Opera Prize in 2012.

In summer 2016, Elgan understudied the role of Lensky in Garsington Opera’s production of Eugene Onegin. Other operatic performances include Florindo in Wolf-Ferrari’s Le donne curiose and Male Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia for the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Count Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Mananan International Festival of Music. He performed the role of Johnny Inkslinger in the Welsh National Youth Opera’s Britten Centenary production of Paul Bunyan to critical acclaim and the Title Role in the RNCM’s production of Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring. He performed Macduff in Macbeth and Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville for OPRA Cymru, understudied the roles of Binet in Vert-Vert and Selimo in Maometto Secondo for Garsington Opera and Lampwick in the GSMD’s production of The Adventures of Pinocchio.

Concert highlights include a concert with Sir Bryn Terfel at Bangor University and tenor solo in Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man, Mass for Peace with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the composer at the Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool. He also sang the tenor solo in Tippett’s A Child of our Time at the Dartington International Summer Festival, conducted by Paul McCreesh. Elgan is a familiar face on Welsh language television channel, S4C and performed in duet with Sir Bryn Terfel on his 2010 Christmas TV show, Nadolig Bryn Terfel. Engagements this season include Fenton in a concert performance of Falstaff with the Cambridge Philharmonic Society, Titorelli/Flogger/Berthold in Philip Glass's opera, The Trial and an Opera Highlights concert tour for Scottish Opera and his debut in China for a Gala Concert with the Xi'an Symphony Orchestra. Forthcoming plans include Spoletta in a semi-staged concert performance of Tosca at the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod with the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, Count Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Séville at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris and Brighella in Ariadne auf Naxos for Scottish Opera and Opera Holland Park.

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Opera

The Trial

The Elixir of Love

Madama Butterfly

The Rape of Lucretia

Le Donne Curiose

Paul Bunyan

Macbeth

Albert Herring