History of ENO
English National Opera traces its roots back to 1931 when Lilian Baylis established the Sadler’s Wells Opera Company at the newly re-opened the Sadler’s Wells Theatre.
Baylis had been presenting opera concerts and theatre in London since 1898 and was passionate about providing audiences with the best theatre and opera at affordable prices, a belief that remains today at the heart of ENO.
During the Second World War the Sadler’s Wells Theatre was closed and the company toured nationally, returning to its home in June 1945 for the premiere of Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes, which proved to be the most important British opera since Purcell’s time.
Britten remains at the heart of ENO’s repertoire and a new, sold-out production of Peter Grimes in 2009 was universally acclaimed. In 1968 Sadler’s Wells Opera relocated from Sadler’s Wells Theatre to the London Coliseum, a theatre designed by Frank Matcham in 1904 for the theatre impresario Oswald Stoll.
Six years after the move to the London Coliseum, the Company was renamed English National Opera.
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In the 1960s Sadler’s Wells Opera went from strength to strength, developing a reputation for nurturing British singers and exploring the then little-known operas of Janácek under the leadership of Charles Mackerras.
The ‘powerhouse’ years of the 1980s saw important productions by, among others, David Pountney, David Alden and Nicholas Hytner. In 1984 ENO became the first British opera company to tour the United States, and in 1990 the first major foreign opera company to tour what was then the Soviet Union.
In 1992 ENO acquired the freehold to the London Coliseum and in 2000 embarked on a four-year restoration programme supported by National Heritage Lottery Fund, English Heritage, The National Lottery through Arts Council England, Vernon and Hazel Ellis and a number of generous trust and individual donors to whom we are extremely grateful. The magnificently restored theatre re-opened in 2004.
Since the re-opening ENO has gone from strength to strength and in spring 2009 the Company received every available UK opera award for work in 2008, a unique achievement. ENO’s 2015/16 season saw the ENO Orchestra and Chorus honoured with the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera, and the ENO Chorus also triumphed in the International Opera Awards Chorus Category. Calixto Bieito’s production of The Force of Destiny was the winner of a Southbank Sky Arts Award.
Today ENO is known for producing groundbreaking stagings of new and core repertoire and for its exceptionally high musical standards. We take a fresh inspiring approach to opera to reflect the diversity of our culture.
At ENO, we believe that opera is a living art form able to connect to people from all parts of our society. We collaborate with a range of artists and art forms to deliver different aspects of the repertoire, from baroque to contemporary, as well as commissioning new works as part of our commitment to the future of the art form.
ENO Chronology
1898
Lilian Baylis, at the age of 23, presents a series of opera recitals at the Old Vic theatre in the Waterloo Road.
1912
She goes on to establish a theatre company at the Old Vic, initially performing cut-down versions of Shakespeare.
1928
Lilian Baylis takes on a small group of dancers: later renamed the Vic-Wells Ballet, the company eventually moved to Covent Garden to become the Royal Ballet.
1931
Sadler’s Wells Theatre re-opens and the Vic-Wells Opera Company is formed. Initially the Company performs at both the Old Vic and Sadler’s Wells, alternating with straight theatre.
1937
Lilian Baylis dies.
1939–1945
During World War II Sadler’s Wells is requisitioned and the Company goes on weekly tour around the country, initially based in Burnley and later at the New Theatre, St Martin’s Lane.
1945
Sadler’s Wells re-opens with Britten’s Peter Grimes, introducing the first English opera composer since Purcell to receive international acclaim.
1968
Managing Director Stephen Arlen moves Sadler’s Wells Opera from Sadler’s Wells Theatre to the London Coliseum.
1974
Sadler’s Wells Opera becomes English National Opera (ENO).
1984
ENO is the first British opera company to tour the United States.
1990
ENO is the first major foreign opera company to tour the former Soviet Union.
1992
ENO acquires the freehold to the London Coliseum.
2000
The Company embarks on a four-year restoration programme on its home, the London Coliseum, supported by English Heritage, The National Lottery through Arts Council England, Vernon & Hazel Ellis, and a number of generous trust and individual donors.
2004
The magnificently restored London Coliseum re-opens to the public.
2009
ENO wins all four UK opera awards and a new production of Peter Grimes, directed by David Alden with Stuart Skelton and Amanda Roocroft, receives universal acclaim and sells out.
2009
In a world first for broadcasting, Jonathan Miller’s new production of Puccini’s La bohème is screened live on Sky Arts 2 and Sky Arts HD while live backstage streamed on Sky Arts 1.
2010
ENO stages its first site specific opera at Great Eastern Quay in London’s Royal Albert Basin, Newham. The Duchess of Malfi is a collaboration between ENO and theatre company Punchdrunk and is also the subject of a Channel 4 documentary.
2011
ENO collaborates with broadcaster BSkyB to create the world’s first opera live in 3D – Hollywood filmmaker Mike Figgis’s staging of Lucrezia Borgia. ENO wins The Royal Philharmonic Society Audience Development Award for reaching new audiences through The Duchess of Malfi and Access All Arias – a free scheme through people can book discounted tickets and buy half-price programmes.
2012
The company was recognised for its work through winning all four available UK opera awards: the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera for the ‘breadth and diversity of the artistic programme’, Castor and Pollux (Olivier Award), Damnation of Faust (South Bank Sky Arts) and Eugene Onegin (Royal Philharmonic Society).
2014
ENO wins the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award for Opera and Musical Theatre for its “consistently outstanding work” in the operatic field.
2015
Richard Jones’ new production of The Mastersingers of Nuremburg wins the Best New Opera Production Award at the Oliviers along with an Outstanding Achievement in Opera Award for Jones himself.
2016
The Chorus and Orchestra of ENO jointly win the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera along with the International Opera Award for Best Chorus. In the same year Calixto Bieto’s The Force of Destiny wins Best Opera at the South Bank Sky Arts Awards.
2017
Phelim McDermott’s new production of Akhnaten wins Best New Opera Production at the Olivier Awards. ENO continues to broaden the range of locations in which its talent performs, including at the Hackney Empire with Charlie Parker’s YARDBIRD, Southbank Centre with The Dream Of Gerontius and for the first time inviting audiences into its West Hampstead rehearsal studios for ENO Studio Live, a new initiative to showcase emerging artists.
2018
ENO continued to expand its programme of work outside the Coliseum. In May the company presented the subversive music of Weimar Germany in Effigies of Wickedness at the intimate Gate Theatre in Notting Hill, while in June they ventured outdoors for Britten’s The Turn of the Screw at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. This was the first appearance of ENO at both venues.
2019
This year saw the launch of our Under 18s go free scheme, allowing young people to visit our operas for free on any Friday, Saturday and opening night performance. We also introduced ENO Response, a scheme allowing aspiring reviewers and journalists the opportunity to produce opera reviews and receive writing advice and feedback.
We kicked off our 2019/20 Season with a series of Orpheus operas and concluded the 2019 Autumn season with another successful run of Jonathan Miller’s much-loved production of The Mikado.
2020
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic drawing our 2019/20 Season to a premature end, ENO moved into a number of different formats.
We launched ENO Breathe, an award-winning breathing and wellbeing programme for people suffering from long COVID, working with the Imperial College Healthcare team.
2020 also saw Annilese Miskimmon joining us as artistic director, having been Director of Opera for Norwegian Opera and Ballet in Oslo and previously Artistic Director and General Manager of Danish National Opera.
2021
A year spent slowly returning to normalcy, we launched our Under 35s scheme, wherein Under 21s can claim free tickets to any ENO opera performance, whilst 21-34 year olds can book heavily discounted tickets.
The autumn saw the return to the London Coliseum for our 2021/22 Season, including some opera favourites (such as La bohème and Così fan tutte) alongside exciting new productions like The Handmaid’s Tale.
2022
Our ENO Engage team successfully rolled out their Finish This… project across the UK. Finish This… is a music making programme for schools nationwide; bringing a fusion of opera, film and animation into the classroom.
We announced the results of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) that was conducted on the ENO Breathe programme. This study is hugely important for ENO Breathe in proving the efficacy of the programme, but also in the much wider context of evidencing effective interventions for supporting people with post-COVID syndrome, or long COVID.
On TV, ENO Engage worked with Sky Kids to design a tv programme to introduce young viewers to opera. This comedy-musical-drama was an epic adventure into the world of operatic music and performance, discovered through the artform’s best characters.
On stage, ENO returned to The BBC Proms lineup and took to the stage at Printworks, a magnificent industrial events space in South London. ENO Orchestra together with award-winning tenor Anthony Roth Constanzo provided an immersive operatic spectacle contrasting Handel with Philip Glass, weaving in dance, live painting, music videos and audio soundscapes.
New York’s Lincoln Center Theater’s critically acclaimed and multi award-winning production of Lerner & Loewe’s much loved My Fair Lady came to the London Coliseum continuing celebrated tradition of summer musicals at the London Coliseum. The London production featured 36 musicians from the ENO’s award-winning Orchestra.
2023
ENO announced a new working partnership to develop a new home for the opera company in Greater Manchester.The partnership will see ENO and Greater Manchester work together on plans to bring the company’s globally renowned cultural offer to a main base in the city-region by 2029.
Following a rigorous assessment process to decide on this new city base, ENO was excited by the close strategic alignment of Greater Manchester’s values and vision with its own, the potential opportunities to collaborate with the region’s vibrant arts ecology, and the chance to inspire and create work with and for new audiences and communities in Greater Manchester.
As Liverpool hosted Eurovision on behalf of Ukraine, ENO does Eurovision was a unique show in the city bringing together two very different musical worlds into one epic joyful, moving and loud outdoor performance with live chorus and orchestra.
On stage, audiences enjoyed the highly anticipated UK premiere of 7 Deaths of Maria Callas, with renowned performance artist Marina Abramović making her ENO debut, exploring the life, work and death of one of opera’s greatest stars.
50 years at the London Coliseum
Explore 50 years of ENO at the London Coliseum
ENO's Vision and Mission
English National Opera exists for everyone, creating new experiences with opera that inspires, nurtures creativity and makes a difference