Elena Langer's comic opera To Die For comes to the London Coliseum for one night

To Die For [A Comedy] comes to the London Coliseum for one performance only, at 7pm on 29 November 2026. It is the first time the opera has been staged in the UK. English National Opera is the host. The production belongs to Nederlandse Reisopera, which made it with the Phion Orchestra.

The opera opened in April 2026 on a tour of the Netherlands. Elena Langer, the British-Russian composer, set a libretto by Arkady Zastyrets, drawn from Nikolai Erdman's 1928 play The Suicide.

Both versions have been stopped in Russia, almost a hundred years apart. Erdman's play was banned before its first performance. Langer's opera was commissioned by the Stanislavsky Theatre in Moscow, then cancelled after Russia invaded Ukraine.

The story jumps from the 1920s to the lawless Russia of the 1990s. It opens in a run-down shared flat, home to the desperate Semyon Podsekayev. It ends in the world of reality TV, where his suicide is booked to go out live on a crass variety programme. The targets are greed, celebrity and the business of selling other people's misery as entertainment. The ending is more hopeful than that sounds. Langer's score pulls in cabaret, folk and music theatre alongside contemporary opera.

Langer said: "I am so delighted to finally see my comic opera To Die For staged in the UK, after it was commissioned and then cancelled in Russia in 2022. I wanted to make fun of celebrity, materialism, exploitation and the absurdity of human behaviour – themes which in today’s society, feel more pertinent than ever. But the opera also has a hopeful side, and may contain surprises! To see it performed on the London Coliseum stage will be one of the proudest moments of my career. I am immensely grateful to Annilese Miskimmon for making this happen, and to everyone at ENO and Reisopera for turning it into a reality."

Born in Russia, Langer trained at the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in Moscow and the Royal Academy of Music in London, and has been based in the UK since 2000. She was the Almeida Theatre's first composer in residence. Her operas include Figaro Gets a Divorce and Rhondda Rips It Up!, both written for Welsh National Opera, as well as Ariadne and The Lion's Face. Ariadne is on the road now with English Touring Opera, in a double bill with Purcell's Dido and Aeneas.

Adrian Kelly conducts, making his London Coliseum debut. He has run the Buxton International Festival as artistic director since 2018. Sam Brown, artistic director of Nederlandse Reisopera since 2024, directs. Designs are by Grace Smart, whose set credits include Cyrano De Bergerac for the RSC and the West End and Susanna at the Royal Opera House.

Several of the Dutch cast return. Tenor Paul Curievici sings Semyon, and countertenor James Hall plays Ivan Vane, the presenter of the TV show. Mezzo-soprano Idunnu Münch is the writer Kukoleva, soprano Jenny Stafford is Maria, and baritone Richard Burkhard plays Kalabushkin, Semyon's shifty neighbour.

ENO audiences will know several of them. Curievici made his company debut in Philip Glass's Akhnaten. Münch is a former ENO Harewood Artist. Stafford first sang with ENO in 2025, as Mary Seton in Mary, Queen of Scots, where she also covered the title role. Burkhard's roles for the company include Marcello in La bohème and Dr Falke in Die Fledermaus.

The evening runs about two hours 30 minutes, with one interval. It is sung in English, with English surtitles. The visit is made possible by The Nicholas John Trust and is dedicated to the memory of Nicholas John, ENO's dramaturge from 1985 to 1996, with further support from the Performing Arts Fund NL.

Tickets start at £25 including fees. Under-21s go free and 21-35s pay reduced prices. To Die For [A Comedy] is booking now for its single London performance at the London Coliseum on Sunday 29 November 2026.