The final curtain and the ushers' gentle sweep
An evening at the Royal Opera House has no fixed end, and that is the first thing to plan around. A ballet triple bill can release its audience before ten; a long Wagner or Strauss score with two intervals can keep the house seated until well past eleven. The running time is printed with every performance and in the programme, and it is the single number that decides the shape of everything afterwards. Look it up on the day you book, not on the steps.
What never varies is what happens once the applause has run its course. The bars inside wind down quickly, and front of house begins, very courteously, to steer the audience towards the doors. The building on Bow Street is the third theatre on its site, designed by Edward Middleton Barry and opened in 1858 after fire destroyed its predecessor, and it has been sending crowds out into the same few streets ever since. The companies now perform together as Royal Ballet and Opera, though nobody on Bow Street has stopped calling the place the Opera House.
Two rooms to enjoy before you leave
The best drink of an opera night is often taken inside, at the interval, so it is worth knowing the rooms before the lights go down. The Paul Hamlyn Hall is the great iron and glass hall that once belonged to the flower market, restored and folded into the theatre during the rebuilding of the 1990s; at the interval its champagne bar hosts the most glamorous queue in London. Higher up, the Amphitheatre bar opens onto a terrace with the Piazza spread out below, and on a warm summer night it is one of the loveliest places in WC2 to argue about a second act.
Order interval drinks before the performance begins, as the pre-theatre notes explain, and those twenty minutes become conversation rather than queueing. The Crush Room, the Victorian foyer whose very name admits what intervals used to be like, is worth a look on the way through. After the final curtain there is no real lingering, only a choice of which door to leave by.
Leave by Floral Street and look up. The twisting bridge of glass and aluminium squares overhead joins the Royal Ballet School to the theatre, so dancers can cross from studio to stage without touching the pavement. It is called the Bridge of Aspiration, and lit at night it is the best small sight in the district.
Three directions out of the foyer
From the Bow Street doors the night can go three ways, and each suits a different mood.
Talking about what you have just heard
The conversation afterwards is the reason to bring company to the opera at all. Three hours of music leaves everybody holding a verdict, and the drink that follows is where you discover whether yours matches. Arrive at it curious rather than expert. Ask what she noticed before offering what you did, and resist reading the programme essay aloud, however good it is.
Karolina lives three minutes from Bow Street, plays the piano seriously and follows the season closely enough to hold views on a conductor's tempo, which she shares only when asked. She is one of the statuesque women on this site and wears a plain column to the house, grand enough for the building without competing with it. For a ballet night Sonya is the natural choice: she still goes to class for the love of it and watches the corps with a trained eye, spotting the arm a beat late that the rest of the stalls missed.
Surtitles above the stage have made opera far easier to share. Nobody needs to have studied the libretto to hold an opinion, and a companion who is seeing Tosca for the first time tonight may well have the sharpest thing to say about the final act.
Coats, crowds and the walk to the next door
The Opera House sets no dress code outside the occasional gala, and black tie and jeans share the same stalls on an ordinary night. Most guests who come with a companion dress up a notch because the building invites it. The practical matter is the coat. After a full house the cloakroom queue is long, so either travel light or ask whether coats can be collected during the final interval.
Then walk. Covent Garden station is a minute away and at its most crowded at exactly this moment, and free taxis on Bow Street vanish once the house empties. Everything named above lies within ten minutes on foot, and the lit Piazza at eleven is half the pleasure. For a hotel on the Strand, Wellington Street runs you down to its door in five minutes.
Shaping a booking around the final bow
Two arrangements cover most opera nights. In the first, you watch the performance alone or with colleagues and a companion meets you afterwards, under the portico or at the bar you have chosen. £500 buys two hours: a drink, a slow walk and a nightcap. At £700 the three hour version fits in a late supper too. This is the after the final bow format, and it works especially well when the running time is long.
In the second, she is with you from the first drink. Dinner, a full opera and something afterwards will usually run beyond the four hours of the dinner date at £900, so give the desk the opera, its start and its published running time, and the length is quoted in writing before anything is confirmed. Ten hours at £1,800 is there for a first night that deserves a slow breakfast. The rates page prices every other length, while the streets around the house are mapped on the Covent Garden and Strand and Aldwych pages.
Quick answers
It depends entirely on the work. Short ballet programmes can end before ten, while long operas with two intervals may run past eleven. The running time is listed with each performance, and it is the figure to build the rest of the evening on.
Not for long. The bars inside close soon after the final curtain, so the real drinking happens at the intervals, in the Paul Hamlyn Hall or up at the Amphitheatre bar. For afterwards, pick somewhere within a short walk and ask about last orders when you arrive.
Yes. Send the desk the expected finish and a meeting point, the portico or a named bar, and she will be there as the audience comes out. Two hours at £500 is the usual length.