Breaking the Waves Tickets at the London Coliseum
A woman on a remote Scottish island is asked by her paralysed husband to sleep with other men and tell him about it, and she believes God wants her to agree. Missy Mazzoli's opera of the Lars von Trier film.
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Read This Before You Book
English National Opera's own age guidance for this is 18 and over. They do not put that on many things.
Bess lives in a strict religious community on a Scottish island. She marries Jan, an oil rig worker, against the wishes of the church elders. He goes back offshore, she prays for him to come home, and he comes home with a broken neck.
Paralysed and certain he is dying, he asks her to have sex with other men and describe it to him afterwards, telling her it will keep him alive. Bess prays about it and answers herself in God's voice, and what she hears back is that she should do it. The men she goes to get more dangerous as the opera goes on. Her community turns on her, her doctor and her sister-in-law try to stop her, and the ending is not softened.
The show includes on-stage sexual content, a community turning on a woman and punishing her for it, violence towards her, and a death. The piece does not resolve whether Bess is being faithful, unwell or in love. It is a serious piece and it is a hard watch.
Who It Is For
People who follow new opera. Missy Mazzoli was the first woman commissioned to write an opera by the Metropolitan Opera, and Time Out called her "Brooklyn's post-millennial Mozart". This piece won the inaugural Best New Opera Award from the Music Critics Association of North America.
People who know the film. Emily Watson's Bess in the 1996 von Trier film was Oscar-nominated, and the opera keeps that story rather than reinventing it.
Not for a first opera, a night out, or anyone under 18.
The Music
Mazzoli writes close-up and conversational rather than at full operatic scale, influenced by Britten and by the hypnotic repetition of Philip Glass. There are no showpiece arias to wait for. The Wall Street Journal, reviewing the premiere, heard "Messiaen, Britten and Janáček but finally all her own."
The sea does most of the work. It is what takes Jan, and it is in the orchestra almost continuously, low and grinding underneath the singing. If you have been put off contemporary opera before by music that sits still, this does not.
Libretto by Royce Vavrek, Mazzoli's regular collaborator, who also wrote Angel's Bone for ENO's October slot.
Performance Schedule
| Date | Day | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 13 February | Saturday | 7pm |
| 18 February | Thursday | 7pm |
| 20 February | Saturday | 6pm |
| 23 February | Tuesday | 7pm |
| 25 February | Thursday | 7pm |
Five performances only, across thirteen days. The Saturday 20 February performance starts at 6pm, not 7pm.
Running time about 2 hours 35 minutes, including one interval.
Cast and Creative Team
| Role | Performer |
|---|---|
| Bess McNeill | Lauren Snouffer |
| Jan | Liam James Karai |
| Dodo McNeill | Joanne Evans |
| Mrs McNeill | Emma Bell |
| Dr Richardson | Elgan Llŷr Thomas |
| Terry | Andri Björn Róbertsson |
| Councilman | Freddie Tong |
Designed by Nicky Shaw.
Music by Missy Mazzoli, libretto by Royce Vavrek. Directed by Tinuke Craig, conducted by Joana Carneiro.
Book Your Tickets
Tickets start from around £25. Five performances is a short run and there is nowhere to move a date to, so if you want the Saturday, book the Saturday.
We sell with all-in pricing, so the price you see is the price you pay. Call 020 7193 9050 for seat advice.
Dates & tickets
FAQs
18 and over, set by the ENO themselves given the sexual and disturbing nature of the show.
Yes.
No, though it follows von Trier's story closely.
Five, and that is the whole run. There is no extension and no transfer announced.
Yes. The opera was first staged in 2016; this staging is new, made for ENO, and has not been seen before.
Tinuke Craig, back at the Coliseum after Blue in 2023, which was nominated for an Olivier Award. Conducted by Joana Carneiro, designed by Nicky Shaw.
Yes. Houston Grand Opera released the first recording of the opera in August 2026, with Lauren Snouffer singing Bess. She is the singer performing it here.
No. It is sung in English with surtitles and told plainly. The summary at the top of this page covers it.
Centre Stalls or the front of the Dress Circle. Avoid the first three Stalls rows and the back four rows of the Dress Circle (H to L), where the surtitle screen is hard or impossible to read. See our London Coliseum guide.
Yes, a BSL-interpreted performance on Tuesday 23 February 2027.
Where to Sit
Centre Stalls rows B to H are the best seats in the building. The ends of either circle sit nearer the stage than the middle seats and cost less, because the circles wrap round the Stalls rather than hanging over them.
The surtitle screen rules out a few seats. The first three Stalls rows look almost straight up at it, and it vanishes from the back four rows of the Dress Circle (H to L) and the back two of the Upper Circle (K and L).
Buy forward rather than central on this one. Mazzoli writes conversationally and the drama sits in faces rather than in big set pieces, so distance costs you more here than it would at a Verdi. Given the choice between a side seat six rows back and a middle seat at the back of the Stalls, take the side seat. Call us and we will work out which one your budget actually buys.
No lift to the Upper Circle.
Seating plan
Dates & tickets
Booking now
The London Coliseum
St Martin's Lane, WC2N 4ES, three minutes from Charing Cross and Leicester Square. Around 2,380 seats over four levels, the largest theatre in the West End. Buses 24, 29 and 176 run along Charing Cross Road and stop a couple of minutes away. Full detail in our London Coliseum guide.
Arrive 20 to 25 minutes before, no later. Around 2,380 people arrive at once, there is a long climb to the upper levels, and the 6pm start on Saturday 20 February catches people who assumed 7pm.
Address
St Martin's Lane, London WC2N 4ES
Nearest Tube
Leicester Square and Charing Cross
Breaking the Waves Cast
Lauren Snouffer as Bess McNeill, making her ENO debut. She has sung the role internationally and recorded it. Liam James Karai as Jan Nyman, Joanne Evans as Dodo McNeill, Emma Bell as Mrs McNeill, Elgan Llŷr Thomas as Dr Richardson, Andri Björn Róbertsson as Terry and Freddie Tong as the Councilman.
Director Tinuke Craig. Conductor Joana Carneiro. Designer Nicky Shaw. Music Missy Mazzoli, libretto Royce Vavrek.
About This Production
A brand new ENO staging, opening 13 February 2027, of an opera first seen at Opera Philadelphia in 2016. Directed by Tinuke Craig, whose Blue at this address was nominated for an Olivier Award, and designed by Nicky Shaw.
What Has Been Said
The reviews below are for the 2016 premiere production in Philadelphia, not for this one, which nobody has seen yet.
The New York Times called it "ambitious, accomplished, dramatically direct". The Wall Street Journal called it "savage, heartbreaking and thoroughly original". Opera News judged that it "stands among the best 21st-century American operas yet produced".
It went on to win the inaugural Best New Opera Award from the Music Critics Association of North America and was shortlisted for Best World Premiere at the International Opera Awards. It has been restaged repeatedly in the decade since, which is a better test of a new opera than its opening notices.
Breaking the Waves
London Coliseum