Royal Opera House and the Floral Hall Extension

Getty Images/iStockphoto

Royal Opera House

The West End

LoginSave

Opera and ballet have a fantastic setting on Covent Garden Piazza, and a night here is a sumptuous affair. Although the programme has modern influences, the main attractions are still the classic productions with their world-class performers. A three-year, £50-million revamp finished in October 2018, with new areas open to the non-ticketed public for the first time, including the cafe and bar.

Discounted tickets (just 49 of them) for the week ahead go on sale on Fridays at 1pm in an event called Friday Rush. Half-price standby tickets are occasionally available four hours before the performance.

If you want a peek behind the curtain, sign up for a guided tour. The popular 1¼-hour Backstage Tour (adult/child £15/11.50) takes you behind the scenes to imagine the preparation, excitement and histrionics before a performance in this inspiring venue. Photography is not allowed.

Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

  • The Long Walk, the pathway leading to Windsor Castle is 2 1/2 miles long.

    Windsor Castle

    20.91 MILES

    The world’s largest and oldest continuously occupied fortress, Windsor Castle is a majestic vision of battlements and towers. Used for state occasions, it…

  • Westminster Abbey.

    Westminster Abbey

    0.96 MILES

    A splendid mixture of architectural styles, Westminster Abbey is considered the finest example of Early English Gothic. It's not merely a beautiful place…

  • Tate Modern museum on the southern bank of the River Thames.

    Tate Modern

    1.07 MILES

    One of London's most amazing attractions, Tate Modern is an outstanding modern- and contemporary-art gallery housed in the creatively revamped Bankside…

  • London Natural History Museum

    Natural History Museum

    2.61 MILES

    With its thunderous, animatronic dinosaur, riveting displays about planet earth, outstanding Darwin Centre and architecture straight from a Gothic fairy…

  • St. pauls cathedral with red double decker bus in London, United Kingdom

    St Paul's Cathedral

    1.04 MILES

    Sir Christopher Wren’s 300-year-old architectural masterpiece is a London icon. Towering over diminutive Ludgate Hill in a superb position that's been a…

  • The Tower of London

    Tower of London

    2.04 MILES

    Few parts of the UK are as steeped in history or as impregnated with legend and superstition as the titanic stonework of the Tower of London. Not only is…

  • Dusk view of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on the banks of the River Thames in London

    Shakespeare's Globe

    1.15 MILES

    Seeing a play at Shakespeare's Globe – ideally standing under the open-air "wooden O" – is experiencing the playwright's work at its best and most…

  • Great Court, British Museum, Bloomsbury, London, England, United Kingdom, Europe

    British Museum

    0.44 MILES

    With almost six million visitors trooping through its doors annually, the British Museum in Bloomsbury, one of the oldest and finest museums in the world,…

View more attractions

Nearby The West End attractions

1. Covent Garden Piazza

0.03 MILES

London’s wholesale fruit-and-vegetable market until 1974 is now mostly the preserve of visitors, who flock here to shop among the quaint Italian-style…

2. London Film Museum

0.09 MILES

Dedicated solely to the British film industry, the London Film Museum has a heavy focus on the James Bond franchise. You'll see 007 vehicles (more than…

3. London Transport Museum

0.1 MILES

Housed in Covent Garden's former flower-market building, this captivating museum looks at how London developed as a result of better transport. It's…

4. St Paul’s Church

0.13 MILES

When the Earl of Bedford commissioned Inigo Jones to design Covent Garden Piazza, he asked for a simple church 'not much better than a barn'; the…

5. Bush House

0.23 MILES

Home of the BBC World Service for more than 70 years, this iconic building at the southern end of Kingsway was built between 1923 and 1935. It has been…

6. Somerset House

0.26 MILES

Designed in 1775 for government departments and royal societies – perhaps the world's first office block – Somerset House now contains galleries,…

7. The Strand

0.26 MILES

In the late 12th century, nobles built houses of stone with gardens along the 'shore' (ie strand) of the Thames. The Strand linked Westminster, the seat…

8. Phoenix Garden

0.27 MILES

A tiny patch of wilderness in the heart of London’s theatreland, Phoenix Garden is at charming odds with its surrounds. Dotted with small ponds, thick…