Director: SARAH HELSBY HUGHES
National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company
We are delighted to welcome back Sarah Helsby Hughes to direct the National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company’s production of H.M.S. Pinafore. A familiar and much-loved face at the Festival, Sarah will also perform in Concert on Wednesday 12 August, 2.30 pm at St John’s Church. Additionally, she will be performing at the Festival luncheon at the Lee Wood Hotel on Sunday, 9 August. Not to be missed!
Sarah hails from Liverpool, England, and studied at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
Since graduating, Sarah’s career has taken her around the world, performing with Mid-Wales Opera, Carl Rosa Opera, Lyric Opera Dublin, D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, Opera North, Opera Ireland, Birmingham Opera Company, Heritage Opera, and Focus Opera. She has played professionally over 20 leading soprano roles in opera and operetta, including Violetta, Tosca, Madame Butterfly, Fiordiligi, Rosalinde, Queen of the Night, Hannah Glawari, Mimi, Santuzza, Donnas Elvira and Anna, Countess Almaviva, Gilda, Norma, and Senta.
She created the role of Mary Crawford in Jonathan Dove’s Mansfield Park and the role of Gloria in Alan E. Williams and Ian MacMillan’s The Arsonists, an opera written to be sung in South Yorkshire dialect, which streamed live on the BBC.
Sarah was Artistic Director of Heritage Opera from 2011 to 2025 and has directed and designed over 40 opera productions for various professional and amateur companies across the UK, including Flatpack Opera (Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro), Chiswick Opera (Die Fledermaus, La Traviata), Somerset Opera (HMS Pinafore, Pirates of Penzance), and has directed for Midland Opera in Birmingham since 2012.
For the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, she performed as Anna in The Merry Widow, directed Haddon Hall(2018), The Pirates of Penzance (2021), and The Mikado (2024), and regularly appears as a singer on Theatrical Adventures river cruises. She is delighted to be directing HMS Pinafore for the Festival in 2026.
