Opera, Dance & Ballet

The dashing corsair Simon Boccanegra and Maria, daughter of the nobleman Jacopo Fiesco, have fallen in love and had an illegitimate daughter. The child has disappeared from her foster-home. Boccanegra returns to Genoa to break the news to Maria, and learns of her death as a crowd, led by the plebeian Paolo Albiani, proclaim him Doge of Genoa

Thomas Allen and five young operatic talents star in Mozart's theatrical and tuneful comedy about love and fidelity.

Clara is given an enchanted Nutcracker doll on Christmas Eve. As midnight strikes, she creeps downstairs to find a magical adventure awaiting her and her Nutcracker.

The magician Drosselmeyer transforms the drawing room for a battle between mice and toy soldiers. During the battle, Clara saves the Nutcracker's life - so breaking a magical spell that turned him from a boy to a toy - and the Mouse King is defeated. In celebration, Drosselmeyer sweeps Clara and the Nutcracker off to the Kingdom of Sweets, where they meet the Sugar Plum Fairy and take part in a wonderful display of dances. The next morning, Clara's adventures seem to have been more than just a dream.

The magical Christmas ballet for all the family, with exquisite dancing and Tchaikovsky’s glorious score played live.

Over 100 dancers and musicians bring Nutcracker to life.

Jonathan Miller’s classic production returns to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the director’s ENO debut.

When it premiered at Sadler’s Wells in 1995, Matthew Bourne’s triumphant modern re-interpretation of Swan Lake turned tradition upside down, and took the dance world by storm. Now firmly established as a modern day classic, this iconic production is perhaps best-known for replacing the traditional female corps de ballet with a menacing male ensemble. Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist, Matthew Bourne blends dance, humour and spectacle with extravagant, award-winning designs by Lez Brotherston, to create a provocative and powerful Swan Lake for our times.

Following his success with The Encounter at the Barbican, Simon McBurney’s five-star production of The Magic Flute returns to ENO, concerning the search for truth and reason, love and enlightenment.

Love and friendship triumph in Carlos Acosta's vibrant production of this dazzling ballet.

Carmen is the best-known work by French composer Georges Bizet, and one of the most famous operas in the entire art form – numbers such as the Habanera and the Toreador Song have permeated the popular consciousness as little else has. The opera’s heady combination of passion, sensuality and violence initially proved too much for the stage, and it was a critical failure on its 1875 premiere. Bizet died shortly after, and never learned of the spectacular success his Carmen would achieve: the opera has been performed more than five hundred times at Covent Garden alone.

Created to celebrate 20 years of democracy in South Africa, INALA (“abundance of goodwill” in Zulu) returns to London after the sell-out runs at Sadler’s Wells. 

English National Ballet brings the timeless classical ballet to life in Derek Deane’s enthralling production.

Tchaikovsky's most ambitious opera receives star treatment in Stefan Herheim's staging, with a cast including Eva-Maria Westbroek, Felicity Palmer and Aleksandrs Antonenko.

Richard Eyre's stunning production of Verdi's best-loved opera returns with star sopranos Ermonela Jaho and Angel Blue as Violetta; the casts also include Plácido Domingo and Charles Castronovo.

Akhnaten is a mesmerising work whose text draws on ancient hymns, prayers and inscriptions sung in their original Egyptian, Hebrew and Akkadian. The opera’s unique mood will transport you to the ancient world through music that combines Glass’s characteristic minimalist voice with stylised movement and choreographed juggling to visualise the rhythms of his score.

With themes of rival families, thwarted love, unhealthy obsessions, and a doomed political marriage, Lucia di Lammermoor is Donizetti‘s most compelling romantic drama.

After a lifetime of reading books on chivalry, one eccentric old man heads off on a rumbustious quest to become a wandering knight accompanied by his faithful and equally ill-suited servant, ‘riotously performed by David Threlfall as Don Quixote and Rufus Hound as Sancho Panza’ (The Times). Taking up a lance and sword, Don Quixote sets out on a hilarious journey across medieval Spain, defending the helpless and vanquishing the wicked. 

Kenneth MacMillan’s full-blooded ballet of love, decadence and passion.

The world premiere of Iain Bell’s Jack the Ripper: The Women of Whitechapel, following his critically-acclaimed In Parenthesis. A disadvantaged group of working-class women are drawn together in their determination to survive the murderous terror that stalks London’s Whitechapel in 1888.

Frederick Ashton's delightful and seasonal ballet brings the joy and beauty of ice-skating to the stage.

Groups of skaters - by turns graceful experts, comically clumsy beginners, romantic couples and confident show-offs - take to the ice on a frozen lake one winter's day.

The dancers of the future bring their talent to the Royal Opera House main stage for three special performances.

The Royal Ballet School presents work choreographed by Liam Scarlett to demonstrate the skill of its talented young dancers.

Ballets by Founder Choreographer Frederick Ashton and Royal Ballet Artist in Residence Liam Scarlett share the stage in this mixed programme with music by Messager and Poulenc.

Rising stars Amanda Majeski and Pavel Cernoch make Royal Opera debuts in Richard Jones's production of the second work in The Royal Opera's Janácek cycle.