Experience Wayne McGregor’s bold ballet triptych, Woolf Works at The Royal Opera House in London
An innovative ballet triptych by Resident Choreographer Wayne McGregor, inspired by Virginia Woolf’s writings and underscored by Max Richter’s original composition.
Show details:
- Dates: 17th January - 13th February 2026
- Age guidance: 8+
- Duration: 2 hours 45 mins
- Venue: Royal Opera House, Bow St, London, UK, WC2E 9DD
About Woolf Works
I Now, I Then (from Mrs Dalloway)
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway (1925) unfolds across a single day in London, weaving together the lives of Clarissa Dalloway, a society hostess preparing for her party, and Septimus Warren Smith, a shell‑shocked war veteran. Though they never meet, both are haunted by memories of the past.
I Now, I Then begins with Woolf’s essay On Craftsmanship and explores how fragments of the novel intertwine with her autobiography, including her candid reflections on mental illness and the way she transformed personal experience into art.
Becomings (from Orlando)
“On or about December 1910 human nature changed.” — Virginia Woolf
Woolf’s 1928 novel Orlando defies convention, following a fantastical figure who lives for centuries and changes sex along the way. It is a playful yet profound meditation on identity, gender, and time.
Becomings captures Orlando’s expansive vision of relativity and transformation, presenting life as energy moving through countless forms—brief, dazzling, and ever‑changing.
Tuesday (from The Waves)
Published in 1931, The Waves is Woolf’s most experimental novel, tracing six voices from childhood to old age, punctuated by the recurring symbol of the sea.
Tuesday responds to Woolf’s fascination with underwater imagery, merging themes from The Waves with a portrayal of her final walk to the River Ouse. As the novel moves towards abstraction and silence, the piece becomes a meditation on mortality and the ebb and flow of life itself.