Ilona Karas was born in the Czech Republic and studied costume design at the CSSD in London.
Her costume design work includes Peter Grimes (Welsh National Opera), Tosca, Jephtha
and Rigoletto (Royal Opera House), L’elisir d’amore (Norwegian Opera), The Marriage
of Figaro (Nevill Holt Opera), Carmen (Grange Festival), My Fair Lady (Staatstheatre
Karlsruhe), Alcina (Staatstheatre Cottbus) and Les Misérables and West Side Story
(Pimlico Opera). She has worked as an assistant costume designer to Annemarie Woods
for The Excursions of Mr. Brouček (Janáček Opera of the National Theatre Brno) and
Madama Butterfly (Zurich Opera), to Antony McDonald for The Marriage of Figaro (La
Scala, Milan) and has assisted and supervised on Powder Her Face (Northern Ireland
Opera), La finta giardiniera (Glyndebourne), Lohengrin (WNO, Warsaw National
Opera), L’enfant et les sortilèges (Bolshoi), The Importance of Being Earnest (NI Opera)
and The Queen of Spades (Grange Park Opera).