Elin Manahan Thomas BiographyBorn and bred in Swansea, before graduating from Clare College, Cambridge in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, Elin Manahan Thomas is fast coming to light as one of Wales’s leading young sopranos. In 2007 she released her début album with Universal Classics and Jazz,
Eternal Light, which entered the classical charts at number two. She is the first singer ever to record Bach’s
Alles mit Gott, a birthday ode written in 1713 and discovered in 2005, and was recently the subject of an S4C fly-on-the-wall documentary which was nominated in the 2007 Celtic Film Festival.
She first received great acclaim for her ‘Pie Jesu’ on the award-winning Naxos recording of John Rutter’s Requiem (8.557130). Her concert performances include Mozart Vespers in the Mostly Mozart Festival for Harry Christophers; Britten’s Death in Venice for Richard Hickox in the Queen Elizabeth Hall; Mozart concert arias with the Gabrieli Consort in the Barbican Hall; Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with Peter Schreier in St John’s Smith Square; Mozart’s Mass in C minor in King’s College Chapel; Gluck’s Orfeo in the Snape Maltings; Haydn’s Heiligemesse and Mozart Vespers on a tour of the United States; the Monteverdi Vespers in St Mark’s, Venice; Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Palau de Musica, Barcelona; and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in Seoul and Kuala Lumpur. She has performed Judith Weir’s King Harald’s Saga in collaboration with the composer, and given the première of Sir John Tavener’s latest work Shunya at his sixtieth birthday concert.
On the opera stage, Elin Manahan Thomas has played the part of Belinda in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in Tim Carroll’s acclaimed production with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Pamina in The Magic Flute, The Governess in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, Micaela in Carmen, Ninetta in Mozart’s La finta semplice, Arminda in Mozart’s La finta giardiniera, Despina in Così fan tutte, Mermaid in Weber’s Oberon and Coryphée in Berlioz’s Les troyens at the Châtelet Theatre, Angelica in Handel’s Orlando, Constance in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites, Lucy in Menotti’s The Telephone, and Night/Nymph in Purcell’s Fairy Queen.
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