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MeI’m looking into a large arena full of professionals in hi-vis and hard hats. Large chandeliers hang down. Somewhere that can’t be seen is very high in Europe, allowing popular trucks to drive straight. This is the Warehouse in Aviva Studios in Manchester. Since opening in 2023, the sports complex operated by Factory International has showcased major sporting events, the largest exhibition ever by Japanese cult artist Yayoi Kusama and a “Performing a four-hour ritual of genitals most of the time” and artist Marina Abramović. Now, for the first time, it is hosting performances.
In fact, it almost led to the first production of the English National Opera in Manchester: the Angel’s Bone’s first UK show Chinese-American writer It’s not Yun is a Canadian librettist Royce Vavrekprepared by Australian celebrity Kip Williams. Opera won 2017 Pulitzer Prizehas been hailed as “a harrowing allegory of human trafficking in the modern world” following its 2016 world premiere in the US.
“I almost fell out of my chair the first time I listened to it,” Williams recalls backstage. “I was surprised and happy that ENO was willing to fix it. It starts with a Gregorian chant and soon it goes into what sounds like a song from (Radiohead’s album) Kid A, and then you’re in a piece that sounds like you’re in Cabaret, and then you’re in a Björk aria.
Angel’s Bone marks Williams’ UK debut, following West End musicals including The Picture of Dorian Gray and his anger one wife Dracula and Cynthia Erivo. But he was more experienced in creating operas in the “big volumes” of the Sydney Chamber Opera. He likes that the Warehouse is a “blank canvas”, which allows him to “approach the scene and let it go” which he finds in Du Yun and Vavrek’s opera.
The plot begins with a family – Mr. and Mrs. XE – who find two battered angels in their home. Care turns into greed. “She’s not a very nice person,” complains singer Allison Cook, who plays Mrs X E. “She’s a sex trafficker and—if we’re to believe that angels are young—she’s also a babysitter.
Speaking from his home in New York, Du Yun tells me that he and Vavrek first took the role from the perspective of angels. But after working with survivors of human trafficking, he decided to change the focus on the “middle class” to the issue of accountability – “the question becomes: if no one is watching and if I could be given the opportunity to take advantage of others, what would I do?”
Hela chochu, muloña Du Yun wahosheli ni: “Do you really want to cry for me? As he explains: “Because opera is very expensive, there are all these moral questions.” But the region has gone to Hong Kong and Germany and Vancouver, and every time I am very happy to see that organizations or theater companies are really trying to solve the issues of their part of the world.
Williams understands the plot in the larger context. “It’s a piece that looks at a problem at the core of our economy and culture,” he says. “What allows us to think about who we are – essentially, who we are morally and publicly – by hiding what we do.” He has also been researching the business itself. He said: “It is the second largest criminal business in the world” (after the drug trade). “The phrase I came across in my research was that you can sell a bag of medicine once; but you can sell a person five or 10 times a day. That’s a stark and brutal picture of why this business is booming.”
Williams insists that “natural music” makes opera suitable for such difficult subjects. He doesn’t want to give too much away, but he explains that his production will make Bone la Angelo a reality, with “stronger architecture” and “more and more new cinematics”. It also speaks to the true buzz about Williams’ work with ENO that every person I speak to gives a lot of creative spoilers when they’re excited about what’s to come.
But it won’t be only performance and production that will be under scrutiny when Angel’s Bone opens on May 12. This is also a question of developing ENO’s relationship with Manchester. “They don’t come here with Rigoletto, you know?” says the conductor Baldur Brönniman in agreement when we talk between rehearsals. “The fact that ENO is doing this as the first stage in Manchester is a risk that should be celebrated.”
Baritone Rodney Earl Clarke (who plays Mr XE) also draws a direct parallel between the story of the opera – “the tension, the brutality, it forces us to look at ourselves and look at what we’re doing” – and the idea of ENO’s treatment at the Aviva Studios. He said: “It shows courage and a real change of pace, in terms of (ENO’s) approach to theater and how opera can be placed in today’s world in a way that is useful and not just boring and boring.”
This should be music to the ears of Arts Council England. Remember Article written by ACE CEO Darren Henley how did they come up with the “new concept” of “parking lot opera, mall theater, theater on your tablet”? Or the latest announcement of ACE’s opera policy (in response to Opera and Music Theater Analysis sent), which reiterates the need to “revive and refresh” the art to ensure its “long-term health”? Bringing theater to a high-tech concrete cave in a place with a young, diverse crowd seems to tick all those boxes.
And the same. The launch of ENO’s Aviva Studios follows a difficult period, after ACE announced in 2022 that it was liquidating the company. Emergency funding was restored only if ENO left London. Pictures of ENO music director Martyn Brabbins resigned. There was corporate services such as the choir, singers and musicians were threatened with dismissal and only resumed work for six months of the year (the agreement was made for seven). There was an argument about where to go in the past Manchester was officially chosen. But by then ACE’s statements about the future of the company had softened allowing a “main base” outside of London along with continuing operations at the headquarters. Recently the language of ENO has been that of a “association” with Greater Manchester.
Aviva Studios was still under construction but was presented in the interview as “an opera house – but in a spectacular way,” explains Rivca Burns, head of music at Factory International, as she shows me around. OperaBurns reckons, it’s “a few steps back in terms of how they deal with new audiences. It’s really fun working with them to push their expectations.”
Collaboration seems to be the key word. Angel’s Bone will be a three-way collaboration between ENO, Factory International and the BBC Philharmonic. Based across the River Irwell from Aviva Studios, in Salford’s MediaCity, the BBC Philharmonic is presenting 10 instruments for the opera. But what about the ENO orchestra itself? Adam Szabo, director of the BBC Philharmonic from 2024, is set to play when ENO takes over Angel’s Bone. to London’s Coliseum in October, with a revised version of Du Yun’s music. Meanwhile, Szabo says boldly, “I don’t think anyone is advocating for a model that is made in London and pushed out of the capital.”
Despite the concerns expressed (often by commentators in London) after the long and difficult announcement of ACE 2022, Szabo and Burns are confident that there is room Greater Manchester to another classical music group. And of course another opera company together with Opera North, which regularly travels to the Lowry, a stone’s throw from the home of the BBC Philharmonic. Since Szabo arrived in Manchester in 2012, he tells me, “it’s only been growth, more audiences, only new places”. In addition, since ENO began performing in the city in 2025, the BBC Philharmonic’s revenue from its Bridgewater Hall concerts has increased by 40%.
Burns is not optimistic about ENO’s future. “I think if it works anywhere, it will work here,” he laments. “Manchester has such a passionate audience. And Angel’s Bone will be a great opportunity for ENO to showcase their experimental – and accessible – side. This is not an opera you think you know.”
