Albert Herring Tickets

London Coliseum, London, Great Britain

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Available Dates: 13 - 16 Oct, 2025 (2 events)

Important Info

Type: Opera

City: London, Great Britain

Duration: 2h 45min

Sung in: English

Titles in: English

Ticket delivery: E-Tickets

E-tickets: Print at home or at the box office of the event if so specified. You will find more information in your booking confirmation email.

Can I choose my seats?

You can only select the category, and not the exact seats.
If you order 2 or 3 tickets: your seats will be next to each other.
If you order 4 or more tickets: your seats will be next to each other, or, if this is not possible, we will provide a combination of groups of seats (at least in pairs, for example 2+2 or 2+3).

Cast

Performers

Choose the date to see the peformers

Creators

Opera Company: English National Opera

Composer: Benjamin Britten

Director: Antony McDonald

Librettist: Eric Crozier

Overview

In this ENO first, join us for May Day celebrations in a fresh and witty new take on Britten’s much-loved coming-of-age comedy.

Following the success of ENO’s previous semi-staged productions – Gloriana, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, and Suor Angelica – Albert Herring will be directed and designed by multi-award winning Antony McDonald and conducted by Daniel Cohen, making his ENO debut on the podium.

Loxford, 1943. A typical small market town, where nothing escapes the eye of the redoubtable Lady Billows and her housekeeper Florence Pike. When there are no virtuous girls left in the village, the May Queen organising committee decide to break with tradition and crown the shy and innocent greengrocer’s boy Albert Herring as the May King.

But heavy is the head that wears the May King crown, and Albert’s friend Sid intervenes with some mischievous assistance throughout the day as Albert accepts his fate and the cash prize. Join us as Albert’s newfound village status leads to an alcohol-fuelled night of debauchery and self-discovery.

Showing in London and Salford, this funny, quirky and off-centre opera is the perfect commentary on small town eccentricities and will be sure to set curtains twitching and tongues wagging, up and down the country.

Composed in 1947, Britten demonstrates his versatility by creating a good-natured comedy. From its gentle ribbing of English Victorian music to its sly quote from Wagner, his light-hearted touch lets the humour shine through the music. The score also requires the same thirteen instruments that he used in his previous opera The Rape of Lucretia.

History

Premiere of this production: 20 June 1947, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Glyndebourne, UK

Albert Herring is a chamber opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten. Composed in the winter of 1946 and the spring of 1947, this comic opera was a successor to his serious opera The Rape of Lucretia. The libretto, by Eric Crozier, was based on Guy de Maupassant's novella Le Rosier de Madame Husson, with the action transposed to an English setting.

Synopsis

Time: April and May 1900
Place: Loxford, a small market town in East Suffolk, England

Act 1
Housekeeper Florence Pike is run ragged. Her mistress Lady Billows is organising the annual May Day festival and has gathered all the important people of the village to elect the May Queen. But Florence has dug up dirt on every single girl nominated, proving that none is worthy to wear the once-much-coveted crown. Lady Billows is depressed. Superintendent Budd suggests that the solution may be to select, this year, a May King instead. He knows of a young man in town who is as certainly virginal as the girls are not: Albert Herring.

Working at the greengrocer's, Albert is teased for his timidity by the easygoing butcher Sid. Sid's girlfriend Nancy comes in to do some shopping, and the couple shares a tender moment while Albert looks on. The lovers leave, and Albert reflects on his miserable existence under his mother's thumb. The Festival Committee arrives with the news of his selection as May King. Mrs. Herring is thrilled by the prize of £25, but Albert balks at being paraded in swan-white and mother and son quarrel to the mocking commentary of the village children.

Act 2
It is the day of the festival. Sid and Nancy are preparing the banquet tent, and they take the opportunity to slip some rum into Albert's lemonade glass. Together with a crown of flowers and the gruesome but improving Foxe's The Book of Martyrs, Albert is awarded twenty-five pounds in prize money. Asked to make a speech, he is tongue-tied and becomes an object of pity at the feast in his honour, but after draining his lemonade glass (which Britten satirically underlines with a Tristan chord, alluding to the philter in that opera). and having a fit of hiccups he manages a few hip-hip, hurrahs.

That night, Albert arrives home alone and quite drunk. In the street, Sid keeps a rendezvous with Nancy, and the two discuss their sympathetic pity for Albert before going off together. This is the breaking point for Albert, who has overheard. He takes the prize money and heads out looking for adventure.

Act 3
The next morning Albert has not returned, and the village is in a panic. Superintendent Budd is leading the search, while the guilt-stricken Nancy tends to Mrs. Herring. A boy shouts that a "Big White Something" has been found in a well, and the village worthies file in to break the news en masse that Albert's crown of flowers has been discovered, crushed by a cart. A lengthy threnody of grief follows, but is interrupted by the surprise return of Albert. He thanks the Festival Committee for funding his night out. They, in turn, are outraged by his tale of drunken debauchery and leave in a huff. Albert finally stands up to his mother and invites the village children into the shop to enjoy some fruit at his expense.

Venue Info

London Coliseum - London
St Martin’s Lane

The London Coliseum (also known as the Coliseum Theatre) is a theatre in St Martin's Lane, Westminster, built as one of London's largest and most luxurious "family" variety theatres.

Opened on 24 December 1904 as the London Coliseum Theatre of Varieties, it was designed by the theatrical architect Frank Matcham for the impresario Oswald Stoll. Their ambition was to build the largest and finest music hall, described as the "people's palace of entertainment" of its age.

The London Coliseum was built by the theatrical architect Frank Matcham who intended it to be one of London's largest and most luxurious "family" variety theatres. Construction began in 1903 and the venue opened on 24 December the following year as the London Coliseum Theatre of Varieties. It is located in St Martin's Lane, London.

Matcham built the theatre for the theatrical impresario Sir Oswald Stoll and had the ambition of it being the largest and finest "People’s palace of entertainment" of the age.

Matcham wanted a Theatre of Variety – not a music hall but equally not highbrow entertainment. The resulting programme was a mix of music hall and variety theatre, with one act - a full scale revolving chariot race - requiring the stage to revolve. The theatre's original slogan was PRO BONO PUBLICO (For the public good). It was opened in 1904 and the inaugural performance was a variety bill on 24 December that year.

English Heritage, in its description of the theatre when it was given listed status in 1960 notes that it is "exuberant Free Baroque ambitious design, the Edwardian "Theatre de Luxe of London" with richly decorated interiors and a vast and grandiose auditorium." The description continues: "Lavish foyer and circulation areas with marble facings, culminating in vast 3-tier auditorium with wealth of eclectic classical detail of Byzantine opulence, some motifs such as the squat columns dividing the lowest tier of slip boxes, backing the stalls, almost Sullivanesque; pairs of 2-tiered bow fronted boxes with domed canopies at gallery level and semi-domed, Ionic-columned pairs of 2 tiered orchestra boxes, contained in arched and pedimented frames surmounted by sculptural groups with lion-drawn chariots. Great, semi-circular, blocked architrave proscenium arch with cartouche- trophy keystone."

The inaugural performance was a variety bill on 24 December 1904, but it "was a total failure and closed down completely only two years after opening in 1906 and remained closed until December of 1907 when it was reopened and at last became successful." In 1908, the London Coliseum was host to a cricket match between Middlesex and Surrey. In 1911, dramatist W. S. Gilbert produced his last play here, The Hooligan.

The theatre changed its name from the London Coliseum to the Coliseum Theatre between 1931 and 1968 when a run of 651 performances of the musical comedy White Horse Inn began on 8 April 1931. Additionally, Arthur Lewis notes that:

Pantomimes began in 1936 with Cinderella and continued regularly until 1946. In 1947 the musical Annie Get Your Gun was staged at the Coliseum and had a staggeringly successful run for the time, of 1,304 performances and three continuous years which was the longest run in theatrical history. There then followed a long run of major American hits beginning with Kiss Me, Kate in 1951, Guys And Dolls in 1953, Pajama Game in 1955, and Damn Yankees in 1957. But this exceptional period did at last come to an end in 1957 when the production of The Bells Are Ringing failed to enthrall anyone.
The Coliseum reverted to the original name when the Sadler's Wells Opera Company moved there in 1968 and, in 1974, the Company changed its name to become the English National Opera; it bought the freehold of the building for £12.8 million in 1992. The Coliseum hosted both the 2004 and 2006 Royal Variety Performances and is also the London base for performances by English National Ballet, which perform regular seasons throughout the year when not on tour.

The Who performed there and recorded their concert, on 14 December 1969.