LONDON COLISEUM

Following highly successful productions of John Adams’s Nixon in China and Doctor Atomic, ENO presents the London stage premiere of the American composer’s controversial ‘docu-opera’ about the killing of a Jewish-American tourist during the hijacking of a Mediterranean cruise liner by Palestinian militants.

Alice Goodman’s eloquently poetic and dispassionately even-handed libretto mixes Biblical and Koranic references with real and imagined accounts of what happened on board. Adams’s intensely expressive score captures the private thoughts and emotions of individuals caught up in the complexities of a political and religious conflict that still defies solution. More of a meditation in the style of a Bach Passion than a conventional operatic drama, the result is an utterly compelling and unique piece of theatre.

Tom Morris, co-director of the National Theatre’s War Horse, makes his opera directing debut, while Baldur Brönnimann, who conducted ENO’s Lost Highway and Le Grand Macabre, applies his contemporary expertise to what many regard as Adams’s finest opera.

This opera contains scenes of a violent nature.

Dates

Opening night: 25 February 2012
Closing night: 9 March 2012

Audience

This opera contains scenes of a violent nature.

Run time

Two hours and 55 minutes with one interval

Show times

	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
Matinee	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Evening	-	7:30	-	7:30	7:30	7:30	-