Friday 16 October 2026
London Coliseum
★★★★
Superbly sung and staged, the London premiere of the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera is visceral and thought-provoking
‘It’s visceral,’ said a friend who saw the Manchester production of Angel’s Bone in May, before it transferred to the London Coliseum and premiered in London on Friday evening. He was right. The show had a long list of trigger warnings, including depictions of ‘human trafficking and sexual exploitation as well as extreme violence.’ The story is very simple. Two angels, a boy and a girl, fall to Earth. Mr and Mrs X.E. take them in, initially to look after them but soon to exploit and abuse them.
In recent years, Opera North has used existing operas to make social points: in 2018, the company became the first in the UK to be awarded Theatre of Sanctuary. Martinů’s The Greek Passion and Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman were both staged to illustrate the plight of refugees.
English National Opera chose Angel’s Bone to illustrate urgent social issues: the opera directly addresses human trafficking and modern slavery, and is staged in collaboration with the Helen Bamber Foundation, a charity whose mission is to ‘give survivors of trafficking and torture the strength to move on.’ In case we regard this as something that only affects other parts of the world, the Foundation’s website informs us that,
“In the UK, more than 23,000 potential victims of modern slavery and trafficking were referred to the National Referral Mechanism in 2025, the highest number since records began.”
The opera’s moral premise is that, given the opportunity to exploit others, in circumstances where, in composer Du Yun’s words, ‘nobody is looking and there are no consequences’ we will fall into depravity. The implication is that beneath society’s thin veneer of civilisation lies savagery, as depicted in William Golding’s 1954 novel Lord of the Flies, in which schoolboys on an uninhabited island soon become savages.
As the composer wrote, she didn’t want to write an opera that ‘demonstrates all the aspects of how human trafficking works’; raising awareness of these issues can be done effectively by watching the news or learning the facts. Instead, she created a work that, though set in the contemporary here and now, has a mythical element, starting with a scene in heaven before the angels fall to Earth. This allows her to address universal human truths.
Yun also wrote that her initial thought was to write the opera just from the point of view of the survivors – the angels – but that ‘Mrs X.E.’s role got bigger.’ The role of Mrs X.E., who forces her weak husband to commit the first visceral act of violence on the angels by ‘pruning’ their wings, raises important questions. As the composer hoped, her portrayal sparked a long discussion between my London friend and me afterwards: ‘I am interested in the conversations that happen after the performance.’
Yun hopes that ‘you might find that you empathise with Mrs X. E.’, not with the ‘so-called evil’, but that you can see both sides, and that she doesn’t think through the outcome of her treatment of the angels; sometimes we don’t think about the consequences of our actions. But it could be argued that Mrs X.E. isn’t a sympathetic character. The opera begins with Mrs X.E. complaining that her husband failed to match her expectations: ‘This is not the dream you promised me’, and that she no longer loves him. Elsewhere, she compares herself to the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation, and at the end of the opera becomes a ‘celebrity’ (for reasons I would rather not reveal, as it would spoil the ending). Is her self-delusion enough to count as a tragic flaw, like those of the protagonists in Shakespeare’s tragedies? To use a more contemporary example, to what extent do we sympathise with Walter White in the TV series Breaking Bad? He commits terrible crimes but initially, at least, with the justification that he was looking after his family. His tragic flaw is that ‘I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it’, as he finally admits to his wife Skyler.
This raises the question of whether we need to feel empathy for art to be effective. Certainly, we feel great sympathy for the angels as they are abused, but that doesn’t mean that we empathise with them; we are not the victims here. One role of great art can be to shock and to provoke. By that measure, the opera is a great success; it has stayed with me for the last two days, almost like an open wound. While I watched it, I wanted to look away, or for it to stop, even as I found it utterly compelling. I suspect this is the effect Yun and librettist Royce Vavrek wanted. By continuing to watch, are we somehow complicit? As has been said, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ Our complicity is heightened by the use of cameras on the stage to film the action in real time and display it on huge video screens. They are the equivalent of people who film an assault or an accident rather than stepping in to help.
The role of the Male Soprano, superbly played by Keith Pun, is interesting. He stands impassive, but at times a look of compassion seems to cross his face; when he sings of the angels being ‘battered, bruised, beaten and bloody’, Bach’s Passions and the image of the suffering Jesus come to mind. Other performances are equally superb. Allison Cook excels as Mrs X.E., her vocal lines at times evoking a terrible beauty, and her acting is entirely convincing as (perhaps?) the embodiment of evil. As Mr X.E., Rodney Earl Clarke has a lovely, rich baritone voice and perfectly portrays his character’s anxiety and weakness.
Matthew McKinney as Boy Angel is stunning, singing across a huge vocal range that he admits is well outside his comfort zone as a classically trained tenor. Mariam Wallentin as Girl Angel comes from a different singing tradition, working as a composer in free jazz, pop and soul, and performing with her husband, Andreas Werliin, in the experimental pop duo Wildbirds & Peacedrums, but her vocal performance matched McKinney’s. But the revelation – or it would have been if I hadn’t already been familiar with their work in Manchester with conductor Ellie Slorach – was Kantos Chamber Choir as the chorus. Their performance, both as singers and actors, was magnificent, as powerful as any opera chorus.
Whatever you think of the opera’s moral standpoint or subject matter, it’s hard to deny the effectiveness of Kip Williams’s production. The revolving set, mostly the various rooms in the X.E.’s house, creates a constant sense of unease. We are voyeurs, looking through the windows as the other angels do while Mr X.E. brutally ‘prunes’ the wings of the Boy and Girl. When the house’s walls and windows obscure our view, the cameras depict what is happening in unremitting detail.
The Orchestra of English National Opera, expertly directed by Baldur Brönnimann, plays defiantly ‘unoperatic’ music. Composer Du Yun said, ‘I was deliberately against using an operatic sound… I’m not afraid of any style because for me, they are all tools.’ The a capella choral singing of the angels sometimes felt as if it came from a Western religious tradition, but with a disturbing twist. Some of Mrs X.E.’s vocal lines recalled the language of 1960s musical theatre designed to shock, in works such as Peter Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King or his opera Taverner. Elsewhere, the Boy Angel’s angst-filled vocal lines reminded me of Benjamin Britten’s lyricism. There was also rock-inspired music, with some fiercely rhythmic drumming, and at one point a jazzy melody sung by Mr X.E. in the style of Louis Armstrong. And there was atonal orchestral music, reflecting the shocking events on stage.
I urge you to see Angel’s Bone, so you can form your own opinion of this deeply troubling opera in a highly persuasive production. But don’t say I didn’t warn you…
Creative Team
Allison Cook Mrs X.E.
Rodney Earl Clarke Mr X.E.
Matthew McKinney Boy Angel
Mariam Wallentin Girl Angel
Keith Pun Male Soprano
Orchestra of English National Opera
Baldur Brönnimann Conductor
Kip Williams Director
Du Yun Composer
Royce Vavrek Librettist
Angel’s Bone continues until Saturday 31 October
Now read on…