Angels and abusers
Mariam Wallentin ENO’s Angel’s Bone, 2026, London Coliseum © Nirah Sanghani
Hysteria and brutality have well-secured places in the opera repertoire, but usually in scenes within a broader story. However, in English National Opera’s new production of Angel’s Bone at the Coliseum we are hit with both for 1 hour 20 minutes, which is how long this contemporary stage work lasts. Its Chinese-born American composer and performance artist Du Yun says, “I never think of myself as an opera composer … what I am is an artist”.
Certainly the music in this opera shows a very capable composer, but perhaps not ideally suited to a genre where you need more light and shade, rather than continuous intensity. The story is that an unhappily married couple find two bruised angels who have fallen into their garden, and after a few brief moments of sympathy decide to abuse them.
The abuse is quite graphic as one angel has one of his wings torn and bloodied. According to librettist Royce Vavrek the work is partly inspired by the evils of sex trafficking, hence the sexual abuse of the angels. This resonates slightly with the passage in Genesis 19 in the Bible, where two angels come to stay with Lot and he protects them from the inhabitants of Sodom. Here the abuse is within the household and it is not pleasant to watch.
The staging involves the heavy use of video designs by Ash Woodward that can be somewhat disorientating. There is an adult party that feels more like the sort of thing I remember as an undergraduate student, but with rather forced jollity. The director Kip Williams seems to have had fun with multiple video images, accomplished by having three camera operators roving around the stage, making it all look very improvisational. But the main take for me was Du Yun’s music, for which she received the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2017. I only wish it were more integrated with the story, rather than seeming to provide a powerful background.
Vocally, the mezzo-soprano Allison Smith gave a fine performance as the wife, and Matthew McKinney was superb as the boy angel, all under the accomplished baton of Baldur Brännimann. The opera’s UK premiere was at Aviva Studios in Manchester this past spring, and this was its first showing in London.
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