““But the inescapable nightmare is primarily spread through Thomas’ Quint. With a voice both sweet and insidious, he becomes a seductive, destabilising presence”
Peter Quint - The Turn of the Screw
Broadway World
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Royal Ballet & Opera 2026
“As Quint, Elgan Llŷr Thomas had the agile, charismatic charm and fluency as master of “all things strange and bold” that made his attraction for the children easier to grasp”
The Arts Desk
“But the inescapable nightmare is primarily spread through Thomas’ Quint. With a voice both sweet and insidious, he becomes a seductive, destabilising presence”
Broadway World
“a persuasive, potentially volatile Peter Quint from Elgan Llŷr Thomas”
The Guardian
“the constant fluidity of the staging highlights the superb singing of Kate Royal as jessel andElgan Llŷr Thomas as Quint’
The Telegraph
“The horribly coercive Peter Quint, ethereally sung by Elgan Llŷr Thomas”
The Times
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English National Opera 2026
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas is clarion of tenor voice and clear of diction.”
The Arts Desk
“Jimmy’s Alaskan comrades get vivid portrayals from Elgan Llŷr Thomas, Alex Otterburn and David Shipley.”
Financial Times
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas sings elegantly as Jack, even as he’s eating himself to death.”
The Guardian
“There were countless brilliant moments throughout The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. Elgan Llŷr Thomas’s moment in First, Don’t Forget Eating, where he claims to have eaten a calf and ten baby calves before dying of overindulgence, was gruesomely memorable.’
London Unattached
“There’s good value, too, from Elgan Llŷr Thomas as the unfortunate Jack, who eats himself to death.”
The Times
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François: A Quiet Place / Royal Ballet & Opera 2024
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas is the perfect tenor lead as François, the Quebecois who fell in love with Junior and now manages his mental illness through marriage to Dede.”
The Arts Desk
“…suavely navigated by tenor Elgan Llýr Thomas.”
Bachtrack
“Elgan Llýr Thomas’s François tries to hold it all together in flashes of vocal sumptuousness.”
The Guardian
“Elgan Llýr Thomas has a glorious ring to his voice and impresses as François, lover of both Junior and Dede. He becomes the glue that holds the family together, asserting himself as the voice of reason.”
London Unattached
“Elgan Llýr Thomas uses his lyrical tenor to telling effect as François.”
Music OMH
“…Elgan Llýr Thomas, outstandingly clear…”
The Telegraph
“…superbly delivered by a fine cast including Elgan Llýr Thomas…”
The Timesem description
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Buxton International Festival 2024
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas’ body language as Don José marks Carmen’s killer as an abject loner, lacking in self-confidence (were Bizet and his librettists portraying an incel before the term was ever coined?). The liquid beauty of Thomas’ tone throughout, and especially in the famous Flower Song, is exemplary.”
The Stage
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Chelsea Opera Group 2024
“Soldier Gérald had a nice swagger to him, Elgan Llýr Thomas singing with admirable robustness of tone and vigour.”
Planet Hugill
“Elgan Llýr Thomas’ voice is full and strong throughout its entire range, and he exuded the confidence of a tenor moving towards the height of his powers.”
Seen and Heard International
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Swedish Chamber Orchestra/Barbara Hannigan @ Berwaldhallen, Stockholm
“As the immoral “Rake,” Elgan Thomas encapsulated the dexterity, natural exuberance, unshackled tenacity, and sublime eloquence of the modern leggiero tenor. Throughout his well-developed registers, mixing and adroitly using cuperto when needed, Thomas personified the despondency and futility of Tom with uncanny particularity. With a spin that seemingly halted for no one, he sang for the Metropolitan Opera House and not Berwaldhallen, a wise and apt choice considering others in his cast chose the antithesis much to their detriment. I hardly refrained myself from blushing when, in Act one and Act three, he sang so sweetly and beautifully to Bounazou. While in Act two, I seemed to have blushed for many contrasting reasons, emanating in no small way, from Thomas’ elegant hubris conveyed, and rightly so, through his stature and able voice which carried on, spin the feelings and pains of the world-weary Tom. The jagged passages of Stravinsky’s writing proved mere childsplay. His dexteriousness remains unsullied throughout the toughest and thickest of climaxes, arias of high energy and recurring demands of high tessituri, working Thomas’ exceptionally stable voice.”
John Vandevert - OperaWire
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Opera North 2023
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas makes a strong impact as Prunier…”
The Arts Desk
“…Prunier, played by rich-toned Welsh tenor Elgan Llŷr Thomas.”
Bachtrack
“…Elgan Llŷr Thomas’s suave Prunier.”
The Guardian
“…engagingly sung by Elgan Llŷr Thomas.”
The Observer
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas’ elegant Prunier, perfectly realised…”
The Reviews Hubtem description
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“Luxury casting brought the eloquent Elgan Llŷr Thomas as the Steersman who makes the best of it without having much of a ship to steer.”
The Telegraph
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Grange Park Opera 2022
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas, an elegant, even sympathetic Cassio…”
The Arts Desk
“The Cassio of Elgan Llŷr Thomas was persuasively sung and well acted.
Bachtrack
“…the tenor Elgan Llŷr Thomas in glorious, ringing form…”
Opera
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas wasa suitably reckless, outspoken and innocent pasty with a bright sounding voice…
Seen and Heard International
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Scottish Opera, February 2022
“Jonathan McGovern’s forthright Demetrius, Charlie Drummond’s determined Helena, Lea Shaw’s vulnerable Hermia and Elgan Llŷr Thomas’ bold Lysander each make a clear impact as a distinctive entity while communally charting their absurdly convoluted emotional round-dance with conviction as well as neatness.”
George Hall, The Stage *****
“The Athenians were vocally well balanced but with strong individual characters. Elgan Llŷr Thomas was an intrepid Lysander opposite Charlie Drummond's strongminded Helena.”
David Smythe, Bachtrack *****
“The quartet of confused lovers is mesmerisingly agile: Elgan Llŷr Thomas (something of a Hugh Grant lookalike) as a quicksilver Lysander…”
Ken Walton, The Scotsman *****
“Perhaps it’s true that the music for the four mixed-up lovers is less striking than the rest but as Hermia and Helena, Lea Shaw and Charlie Drummond project it strongly, as do Lysander and Demetrius (Elgan Llŷr Thomas and Jonathan McGovern)…“
Nicholas Kenyon, The Telegraph ****
“Jonathan McGovern’s Demetrius, Charlie Drummond’s Helena, Lea Shaw’s Hermia and Elgan Llŷr Thomas’s Lysander – all singers to watch – found maximum character in the quartet of lovers.”
Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian
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English National Opera, October 2021
“Proper operatic casting makes you treasure the beauty in so much of Sullivan’s writing, especially for his young lovers. The Mendelssohnian reverie of beauteous tar Ralph Rackstraw’s entrance sequence is richly served both by the orchestra and by Elgan Llŷr Thomas, with an Italianate throb in the voice and top notes to die for...”
David Nice, The Arts Desk ****
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas and Alexandra Oomens ooze charm and sweet lyricism...”
Richard Morrison, The Times ****
“Musically it’s very fine [...] Thomas and Oomens are lovely in their duets and arias.”
Tim Ashley, The Guardian
“The Welsh tenor, Elgan Llŷr Thomas, has a golden tenor voice which can weep as well as it can soar.”
Jack Buckley, Seen and Heard International
“Young artists Elgan Llŷr Thomas (Ralph Rackstraw) and Alexandra Oomens (Josephine) sing the socks off the central love-story.”
Alexandra Coghlan, The Independent ****
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas looks like Hugh Grant and sings with touching ardour...”
Nick Kimberley, The Evening Standard
“…sailor Ralph Rackstraw, attractively sung by tenor Elgan Llŷr Thomas...”
Claudia Pritchard, Culture Whisper ****
“Elgan Llŷr gives us a charming, lovelorn Ralph Rackstraw...”
Gary Naylor, Broadway World ****
“It’s very well sung, too. As the two young lovers, Elgan Llyr Thomas and Alexandra Oomens, both ENO Harewood artists, make the Coliseum’s rafters ring with some splendidly fresh singing.”
David Mellor, In Entertainment
“ENO has put two of its young Harewood artists at the centre of the show: Alexandra Oomens’ Josephine and Elgan Llŷr Thomas’s Ralph [...] the latter was also admirably authentic, gliding smoothly around the relatively undemanding vocal writing: all the less room to hide, of course. Both were guilelessly melodramatic, as it should be, to offset that larks.”
Benjamin Poore, Opera Wire
“Elgan Llyr Thomas’ Ralph was precise and pleasant.”
Robert Thicknesse, Opera Now
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Tŷ Cerdd (TCR031), June 2021
“...excellent disc of contemporary Welsh song, featuring a glittering roster of Welsh singers…Huw Watkins’s mesmerising ‘Eyes look into the well’, sung with haunting beauty by Elgan Llyr Thomas...”
Kate Wakeling, BBC Music Magazine ****
“Elgan Llyr Thomas sounds lyrical, handsome and impulsive in William Mathias’s ‘Pan Oddwn Fachgen’ (‘A Dream of Youth’)”
Tim Ashley, Gramophone
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Scottish Opera, July 2021
“Gemma Summerfield and Elgan Llyr Thomas give a particularly glowing account of the young lovers Nannetta and Fenton.”
Rowena Smith, The Guardian ****
“The vocal stars of the show are Gemma Summerfield’s big-voiced Nanetta, Elgan Llyr Thomas and a deluxe trio of Falstaff’s sidekicks: Aled Hall, Alastair Miles and Jamie MacDougall.”
Hugh Canning, The Sunday Times
“...Fenton, ardently characterised by Elgan Llÿr Thomas...”
Ken Walton, The Scotsman *****
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas was a sweetly love-struck Fenton”
David Smythe, Bachtrack ****
“…Phillip Rhodes (Ford), Elgan Llŷr Thomas (Fenton), Aled Hall (Dr Caius) and Jamie MacDougall (Bardolph) all played their part in this happy mosaic.”
Andrew Clark, Opera Magazine
“...an intimate scene between the young lovers – Nannetta and Fenton – sung with fresh vivacity by Gemma Summerfield and Elgan Llyr Thomas...”
Susan Nickalls, Opera Now ****
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Grange Park Opera (film), March 2021
“Llŷr Thomas makes a fine Gonzalve, darker and weightier in tone than most”
Tim Ashley, The Guardian, 21 March 2021 ****
“Welsh tenor Elgan Llyr Thomas convinces as the young poet Gonzalve”
Alice Fowler, The Guildford Dragon, March 2021
“...the fluid phrasing and Gallic tang of Thomas's dapper-sounding tenor”
Richard Bratby, The Arts Desk, 30 March 2021 ****
“The small cast keep things sizzling. What we lose in Ravel’s miraculous play of instrumental colour we gain in quick-fire, conversational rhythms of music that stick as close to speech as possible. Except, that is, for Gonzalve (a deliciously ardent, overblown Elgan Llyr Thomas) who turns the simplest exchange into a musical sonnet.”
Alexandra Coghlan, The i, 26 March 2021 ****
“GPO’s singers, under Medcalf’s direction, succeed admirably [...] Elgan Llŷr Thomas as the handsome, posy Gonzalve, and Ashley Riches [...] play their parts with tremendous gusto.”
Hugh Canning, The Times, 28 March 2021
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas was in a comically lustrous voice as Gonzalve, extravagant in delivery and sense of line, more entranced by the clocks adorning the walls and his own poetic genius than poor Concepción.”
Benjamin Poore, OperaWire, 27 March 2021
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas, who leads the cast in matters of Gallic style, is a dizzily elegant, vocally airborne Gonzalve”
Yehuda Shapiro, Opera Magazine, June 2021
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas is every bit as annoying as the self-absorbed poet Gonsalve as he needs to be Ivan Hewett”
The Telegraph, 19 March 2021
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Scottish Opera/Opera Ventures 2019
“with Elgan Llŷr Thomas’ passionately sung Dr Richardson”
David Smythe - Bachrack
“A top-class cast is led by the outstanding American soprano Sydney Mancasola as God-fearing Bess, febrile and loving, and Edinburgh-born baritone Duncan Rock as strange, handsome Jan. Wallis Giunta (Dodo), Elgan Llŷr Thomas (Dr Richardson) and Susan Bullock (Mother) lead the excellent ensemble”
Fiona Maddocks - The Observer
“he commitment of this staging’s entire cast is hard to fault. Soprano Sydney Mancasola is vocally and physically unstinting in attempting to realise the troubled figure of Bess. She’s valiantly supported by Wallis Giunta as her caring sister-in-law Dodo, Elgan Llyr Thomas as the doctor who tries to intervene to save Bess, Duncan Rock as her stricken husband Jan, and Susan Bullock as the mother who abandons her to her fate.”
George Hall - The Stage
“d there’s some extraordinarily fine singing from Elgan Llŷr Thomas as the sympathetic doctor”
David Nice - The Arts Desk
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The Rake’s Progress at Snape Maltings 2019
“Elgan Llyr Thomas sang Tom Rakewell with terrific verve.”
Richard Morrison, The Times
“The Suffolk contingent was led in rapturous fashion by Elgan Llyr Thomas as Tom Rakewell. With a voice that’s exquisetely modulated and flexible in creating character, this young tenor confirmed his status as one of the most exciting British male talents to have emerged in recent years.”
Mark Valencia, Opera Magazine