An Introduction to Breaking the Waves

A deeply religious Bess lives in the Scottish Highlands with her husband Jan. He works on an offshore oil rig.

When Jan becomes paralysed from the waist down in a work accident, he asks Bess to take other lovers and tell him about it as he believes that it will keep their love alive.

Bess endures increasing sexual violence and degradation believing it is a form of sacrifice to save her incapacitated husband.

Hailed as “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart” by Time Out, Missy Mazzoli is a cultural trailblazer.

Her work spans opera, orchestral and chamber music, ballet, film, and television. Mazzoli’s music is influenced both by Benjamin Britten and the minimalist music of Philip Glass in its use of hypnotic rhythmic pattern.

In 2018, she made history when she became one of the first two women (along with Jeanine Tesori) to be commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera. Her opera based on George Saunders’s 2017 novel Lincoln in the Bardo premieres in New York in October 2026.

ENO’s 2027 production of Breaking the Waves will be directed by British director Tinuke Craig. She returns to ENO following directing the Olivier award-nominated production of Blue (2023).

Tinuke trained as a director at LAMDA. She was the Gate’s Associate Director 2015-2016 and in 2014 received the Genesis Future Director Award. She is an Artistic Associate at the Lyric Hammersmith, and an Associate at the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. She was previously the Baylis Director at the Old Vic.

Portuguese conductor Joana Carneiro will conduct the Orchestra of ENO for Breaking the Waves. She returns to the company following recent productions of ENO’s Mary, Queen of Scots (2025) and The Handmaid’s Tale (2022 and 2024). She made her ENO debut with world stage premiere of John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary, directed by Peter Sellars.

She is in high demand across the globe, most recently she concluded a four-year tenure as Principal Guest Conductor of the Real Filharmonia de Galicia.