Unveiled / Delphian CD 2023
“The songs show off Thomas’ range and clarion top, as well as his excellent diction.”
Opera Now
Duke of Mantua: Rigoletto. Opera Holland Park 2023
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas is smooth voiced and proves to be quite charismatic without indulging in hyperbole.”
Music OMH
Rinuccio: Gianni Schicchi / Scottish Opera 2023
“Francesca Chiejina and Elgan Llŷr Thomas shine as innocent young lovers Lauretta and Rinuccio…”
The Stage
Steuermann: Der fliegende Holländer / Grange Park Opera 2022
“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
Cassio: Otello / 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
Taliesin’s Songbook / Ty Cerdd CD 2022
“…sung with haunting beauty by Elgan Llŷr Thomas.”
BBC Music Magazine
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas sounds lyrical, handsome and impulsive in William Matthias’ Pan Oeddwn Fachgen’…”
Gramophone
Lysander: A Midsummer Night’s Dream / Scottish Opera 2022
“The Athenians were vocally well balanced but with strong individual characters. Elgan Llŷr Thomas was an intrepid Lysander opposite Charlie Drummond’s strongminded Helena.”
Bachtrack
“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.”
The Guardian
“The quartet of confused lovers is mesmerisingly agile: Elgan Llŷr Thomas (something of a Hugh Grant lookalike) as a quicksilver Lysander…”
The Scotsman
“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.”
The Stage
“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)…”
The Telegraph
Ralph Rackstraw: HMS Pinafore /L English National Opera 2021
“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…”
The Arts Desk
“…attractively sung by Elgan Llŷr Thomas.”
Culture Whisper
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas and Alexandra Oomens are lovely in their duets and arias.”
The Guardian
“The ENO Harewood Artists Elgan Llŷr Thomas and Alexandra Oomens were persuasive as the plot’s star-crossed lovers, Thomas’ sweet, flexible tenor nicely matched by Oomens’s light, limpid soprano.”
Opera
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas has a golden tenor voice which can weep as well as it can soar. Handsome too. And fleet of foot.”
Seen and Heard International
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas has a dashing light tenor and the type of leading-man looks that pretty much demand a Poldark gag, which McCrystal duly delivers.”
The Spectator
“As Ralph Rackstraw, Elgan Llŷr Thomas looks like Hugh Grant and sings with touching ardour.”
The Standard
“As Ralph, Elgan Llŷr Thomas is strongly lyrical…”
The Telegraph
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas and Alexandra Oomens ooze charm and sweet lyricism as the secret lovers Ralph and Josephine.”
The Times
Fenton: Falstaff / Scottish Opera 2021
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas was a sweetly love-struck Fenton.”
Bachtrack
“Gemma Summerfield and Elgan Llŷr Thomas give a particularly glowing account of the young lovers Nannetta and fenton.”
The Guardian
“…sung with fresh vivacity by Germma Summerfield and Elgan Llŷr Thomas.”
Opera Now
“Gemma Summerfield as Nannetta and Elgan Llŷr Thomas as Fenton are notably compelling…”
The Stage
“The vocal stars of the show are Gemma Summerfield’s big-voiced Nanetta, Elgan Llŷr Thomas and a deluxe trio of Falstaff’s sidekicks: Aled Hall, Alastair Miles and Jamie MacDougall.”
The Sunday Times
Gonzalve: L’heure espagnole / Grange Park Opera Film 2021
“…the fluid phrasing and Gallic tang of Elgan Llŷr Thomas‘s dapper-sounding tenor…”
The Arts Desk
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas makes a fine Gonzalve, darker and weightier in tone than most.”
The Guardian
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas is a vibrant poet manqué, pirouetting round a lamppost with a grace lacking in his literary perambulations. More seduced by the inner mechanisms of a clock than the secret workings of a woman’s heart, this Gonzalve enters the grandfather clock in a state of almost unhinged ecstasy: “to enter the inner sanctum of a coffin!” There’s a tingling tremor of hyperbolic sensibility in Thomas’s dulcet tenor line, and his Spanish airs have a dreamy fluency.“
Opera Today
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas, who leads the cast in matters of Gallic style, is a dizzily elegant, vocally airborne Gonzalve…”
Opera
“He has a striking tenor voice with remarkably easy and agile high notes.”
Seen and Heard International
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas brings a bright, healthy tenor to poet-about-town Gonzalve.”
The Stage
Nanki-Poo: The Mikado / English National Opera 2019
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas as Nanki-Poo is a voice to listen out for…”
Culture Whisper
“…the roster was led by ENO’s two most indisputably stellar Harewood Artists, the clarion tenor Elgan Llŷr Thomas as Nanki-Poo and the soprano Soraya Mafi who sang a perfectly scrumptious Yum-Yum.”
Opera
Tom Rakewell: The Rake’s Progress / Equilibrium 2019
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas is an excellent Tom Rakewell, who, with a strong and flexible tenor, is simultaneously disarming and facing his downfall. “
Klassiek Centraal
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas performed a classic Tom Rakewell and seemed to have everything one needs – voice, charm, stage presence – to make a great career.”
La Libre Belqique
“With a voice that’s exquisitely 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.”
Opera
“The cast was led by Elgan Llŷr Thomas as the feckless Tom, whose brightly lit tone swept through the score from the opening duet through to “death’s approaching wing”. Able to command facial expression with ease, whether shame, frustration or child-like naivety when incarcerated in Bedlam,
Thomas gave a truly persuasive portrait and his attempt to define love was particularly touching.“
Opera Today
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas sang Tom Rakewell with terrific verve…”
The Times
Orbin: Caractacus / Hyperion CD 2019
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas and Elizabeth Llewellyn are passionately equal to Elgar’s enthralling love duet in Scene 3…”
Gramophone
Johnny Inkslinger: Paul Bunyan / English National Opera at Wilton’s Music Hall 2018
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas is the latest discovery in a golden age of British tenors…”
The Arts Desk
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas giving us a mellifluous, lyrical rendering of Johnny Inkslinger, the bookkeeper with artistic ambitions…”
Bachtrack
“The starriest turn came from Elgan Llŷr Thomas, brooding, resonant and seemingly aspiring to Cavaradossi in Inkslinger’s ‘It was out in the sticks.””
Opera
“The Johnny Inkslinger of Elgan Llŷr Thomas is a fine assumption, lyrical and strong, his retelling of his life story drawing the audience in, and he shone, too, in the opera’s closing pages…”
Seen and Heard International
“…particularly lovely singing from Elgan Llŷr Thomas (Johnny Inkslinger) and Rowan Pierce (Tiny).
The Telegraph
Peter Quint: The Turn of the Screw / English National Opera at Regent’s Park Open-Air Theatre
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas’ Peter Quint, chalk-faced and rusty-haired, kicked the fear factor up several gears. Perhaps it was the eerie stillness of his movements. Perhaps the way his glacial voice erupted in demented passion, bursts of savagery that were perfectly targeted and unpleasant to witness. Whatever the reason, Thomas made the role his own.”
Bachtrack
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas’ flamboyantly sinister Quint…”
Financial Times
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas’ muscular, firmly defined tenor captured Quint’s viciousness and angry resentment; he was similarly imposing physically – no wonder Miles was idolatrous and intimidated in equal measure.”
Opera Today
“…the most vocally striking contribution comes from Elgan Llŷr Thomas, who as Quint combines rich vibrant tone with handsome presence.”
The Telegraph
“Elgan Llŷr Thomas’ striking Peter Quint…”
The Times
