Acknowledged internationally for its award-winning work, ENO is a creative and vibrant home for compelling theatrical productions staged by imaginative artists from the worlds of opera, theatre, dance, film and the visual arts and performed by the leading British and international singers and conductors of the day.

Each Season ENO produces a high proportion of new productions, some in close collaboration with international partners such as the Metropolitan Opera, New York, ensuring that new work is regularly presented to international audiences. With a strong commitment to contemporary opera and an emphasis on nurturing and developing British talent, ENO continues to invest in the future and reach out to new audiences. Affordable tickets, membership schemes, learning progrmmes and innovative online content help to extend audiences for opera.

The imposing Royal Opera House, with its grand classical portico fronting Bow Street, is actually the third theatre built on the Covent Garden site. Both the previous theatres were destroyed by fire, an unfortunate but common incident, in the era before electricity.
Actor-manager John Rich built the first Theatre Royal, Covent Garden with the fortune he had made from the huge success of The Beggar’s Opera. At that time, under the terms of a Royal Patent, Covent Garden was only one of two theatres permitted to perform drama in the capital. The other patent theatre was the nearby Theatre Royal Drury Lane, and a keen rivalry soon developed between them.

The first important musical works to be heard at the theatre were by Handel, who, from 1735 until his death in 1759, had close links with Covent Garden both as composer and organist. Extensive rebuilding work took place in 1787 and 1792, but in 1808 the theatre was completely destroyed by fire with the loss of twenty-three fireman as the building collapsed.