Welsh National Opera is starting 2025 with a new team in charge, Port Talbot born director Adele Thomas and producer Sarah Crabtree as Co-CEOs / General Directors. Thomas recently directed WNO’s new production of Verdi’s Rigoletto; Crabtree joins the company from The Royal Ballet and Opera, where she was Creative Producer.
The duo will have equal oversight of artistic direction and management, a situation which parallels that at the Royal Shakespeare Company which has Co-Artistic Directors, Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey.
A joint statement said the couple would draw upon the postwar spirit of democracy and the Welsh grassroots vocal tradition to reimagine WNO as the opera company of the future, "searching for increased diversity" and "questioning what opera can be in the modern world."