Every singer who opened Angel’s Bone in Manchester this spring returns for the opera’s six-performance run at the London Coliseum in October.
Allison Cook and Rodney Earl Clarke will lead Angel’s Bone at the London Coliseum from 16-31 October 2026, taking again the roles of Mrs X.E. and Mr X.E. they sang for English National Opera in Manchester in May. Cook, a Scottish mezzo-soprano, was last with the company as Judith in Duke Bluebeard’s Castle in 2024; Clarke, a British baritone who works across opera and musical theatre, was judged by The Arts Desk to have “sung with fearsome brilliance” in the part.
The two angels of the title are sung by Mariam Wallentin as Girl Angel and Matthew McKinney as Boy Angel. Wallentin, one half of the Swedish duo Wildbirds & Peacedrums, has worked at the edge of the form before, including The Wasp Factory at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre; McKinney won the Kathleen Ferrier Awards in 2024 and is a Jerwood Young Artist at Glyndebourne this year. Hong Kong countertenor Keith Pun completes the cast as Male Soprano, and the Manchester-based Kantos Chamber Choir returns as guest vocal ensemble.
Kip Williams directs, with designs by Marg Horwell — the pair behind Dracula starring Cynthia Erivo at the Noël Coward Theatre, The Maids at the Donmar Warehouse and The Picture of Dorian Gray. Jack Knowles lights the production, Ash J Woodward is original video designer, and Dominic Bilkey and Joseph Reiser are co-sound designers. Baldur Brönniman returns to conduct the Orchestra of ENO, who play an expanded orchestration for London.
Du Yun’s score pulls medieval polyphony, punk, electronics, chamber writing and cabaret into the same 90 minutes, set to a libretto by Royce Vavrek. It took the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2017, and its subject is unsparing: a couple take in two wounded angels and turn compassion into captivity, a story the composer uses to write directly about human trafficking and modern slavery. “Art, at its best, functions to provoke,” as Du Yun has put it.
The production carries an age guidance of 18 and over. It depicts human trafficking and sexual exploitation, and contains sexual violence including rape, extreme violence, death, and drug, alcohol and tobacco misuse. It is sung in English with surtitles and runs 90 minutes.
There are six performances:
- 16, 22, 23 and 29 October at 19.30
- 17 October at 18.00
- 31 October at 15.00
The 22 October performance is interpreted in British Sign Language.
Tickets start at £25 including fees, and ENO’s access pricing applies across the season: under-21s can claim free seats at any level of the theatre for every ENO production, and 21 to 35-year-olds pay a reduced rate.
Angel’s Bone plays the London Coliseum from 16-31 October 2026, ahead of ENO’s new Tosca, which opens at the same address on 30 October.
