La traviata Tickets at the London Coliseum
A woman gives up the only man she has ever loved because his father asks her to, and lets him believe she never cared. Verdi, sung in English by English National Opera, and over in two hours.
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Help choosing your seat
Who Is La traviata Best For?
Anyone who wants a big night at the opera without a long one. Peter Konwitschny cuts the score and removes the interval, so this runs about two hours straight through. A standard Traviata elsewhere is closer to three with a break in it.
Anyone who already knows the piece. This staging takes the crinolines and the chandeliers away, moves it to the 1950s, and leaves red curtains, a chair and the people. It won the Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production. If you have seen La traviata done straight and want to see what else is in it, this is the one.
Less good as your first-ever opera than the piece itself would suggest. La traviata is the standard recommendation for a beginner, and rightly. This particular production is not the standard version of it: it is cut, symbolic, and at points it asks you to already know what is happening on stage. If it is your first opera, read the story below before you go and you will be fine. If you want a first opera that explains itself, this is not it.
The Story
Violetta is the most celebrated woman in Paris society and she is dying, though nobody knows it. She falls in love with Alfredo and leaves her old life for him. Alfredo's father asks her to give him up to protect the family's name, and she agrees, letting Alfredo believe she has gone back to her old life rather than tell him the truth. He humiliates her in public for it. She dies before he learns the truth.
Verdi's librettist took it from Alexandre Dumas fils, whose La Dame aux Camélias was drawn from a woman he had actually known.
The Music
Libiamo, the drinking song in the first scene, and Sempre libera, Violetta's showpiece at the end of the first act, are the two you will know without knowing where from. Be aware that Konwitschny cuts music, including some of the cabalettas and the offstage bands, so if you own a recording, the running order will not match it.
Performance Schedule
| Day | Matinee | Evening |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Selected dates, 7:30pm | |
| Tuesday | Selected dates, 7:30pm | |
| Wednesday | Selected dates, 7:30pm | |
| Thursday | Selected dates, 7:30pm or 6pm | |
| Friday | Selected dates, 7:30pm or 6pm | |
| Saturday | 13 March only, 3pm | Selected dates, 7:30pm |
| Sunday | No performance |
Fifteen performances in total between 3 February and 13 March 2027. This is a repertory season, so the opera does not play every week and the pattern changes from week to week. Check the date and the time on your ticket, particularly the 6pm starts and the 3pm matinee that closes the run.
Around two hours, straight through with no interval.
Cast and Creative Team
| Role | Performer |
|---|---|
| Violetta | Heidi Stober, and Alison Langer on 3 and 5 March |
| Alfredo | Egor Zhuravskii |
| Germont | David Stout |
Directed by Peter Konwitschny, conducted by Kevin John Edusei, revival directed by PJ Harris. Music by Verdi.
Book Your Tickets
Fifteen performances across six weeks, and the two Violettas are not interchangeable dates: if you want Alison Langer you need 3 or 5 March specifically.
We sell with all-in pricing, so the price you see is the price you pay. Call 020 7193 9050 and we will tell you what the surtitle screen looks like from the seat before you book it.
Dates & tickets
FAQs
Yes, with surtitles above the stage as well.
Around two hours, and there is no interval. Konwitschny's production runs straight through by design. Plan drinks and the loo for before, not during.
La traviata is the best first opera there is. This production is a harder first opera than most, because it is cut and staged symbolically rather than literally. Read the story above beforehand and you will follow it easily.
It is the production. Konwitschny hangs layers of red curtain across the stage and strips them away one at a time as Violetta's life comes apart, so the space keeps getting emptier and deeper until she is alone on it. It is a deliberate design, not a cut-price one.
Heidi Stober for most of the run, with Alison Langer on 3 and 5 March.
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 Wednesday 3 March 2027.
It helps more here than it would at a conventional Traviata. The plot summary above takes a minute to read and covers everything you need.
In the 1950s. Konwitschny moves it from 1850s Paris, so the clothes are modern rather than period.
Yes. It first played here in 2013 and has been revived since. The staging is the same; the cast is new.
No age guidance has been published for this run. The subject is a dying woman in a sexual trade and a public humiliation, and there is no interval to leave at. We would treat it as a show for teenagers upwards.
Violetta dies. It is a tragedy and has been since 1853.
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 entirely from the back four rows of the Dress Circle (H to L) and the back two of the Upper Circle (K and L). That matters more here than on most operas, because the text is cut and rearranged, so you cannot fall back on a plot you half remember.
This staging is unusually kind to the cheap seats. There is almost nothing on stage to miss and much of the effect is the whole width and depth of the Coliseum stage opening up, which reads better from height than from the front row.
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 come through the doors at once, and with no interval there is no break to catch up in if you are late.
Address
St Martin's Lane, London WC2N 4ES
Nearest Tube
Leicester Square and Charing Cross
La traviata Cast
Heidi Stober as Violetta, back at the Coliseum after ENO's Mary, Queen of Scots in 2025, with Alison Langer singing the role on 3 and 5 March.
Egor Zhuravskii as Alfredo, who won the Mozart Prize at the Tenor Viñas competition in 2025. David Stout as Germont, who was Papageno in ENO's The Magic Flute in 2024.
Original director Peter Konwitschny, whose staging won the Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production. Set and costumes by Johannes Leiacker. Conductor Kevin John Edusei. Revival director PJ Harris. Music by Giuseppe Verdi, libretto by Francesco Maria Piave after Alexandre Dumas fils.
About This Production
Peter Konwitschny's staging has been in ENO's repertoire since 2013, and it is the reason this Traviata is not like other ones. It moves the opera to the 1950s, cuts music Konwitschny judged surplus to the drama, removes the intervals, and plays Alfredo not as a gallant suitor but as what Konwitschny called a socially awkward bookworm, in a cardigan and glasses.
Johannes Leiacker's set is layers of red curtain and a single chair. They come down one at a time as the story goes on, so by the last scene the whole depth of the Coliseum stage is bare and Violetta is alone on it, singing to Alfredo out in the auditorium. It won the Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production in 2013.
What Has Been Said
The 2023 revival divided along a clean line: strong on the singing, argued about on the staging.
The curtains were the part reviewers kept returning to, "stripped away over the drama's course, reflecting the unveiling of Violetta's psychological and emotional states", and one called the design outright genius. The final scene, with the other characters sent out into the Stalls, was picked out repeatedly as the thing people left talking about.
The objection was equally consistent. One review ran under the headline "This singing deserves more than a chair" and argued the near-bare stage did not do justice to the music. Another warned that the symbolism can obscure the plot for anyone who does not already know it.
This is a new cast, so the singing half of that verdict starts again in February.
La traviata
London Coliseum