An opera based on TS Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral is being staged at the Queen Elizabeth Hall this month.

Murder in the Cathedral, or Assassinio nella cattedrale, was first performed at La Scala Milan in 1958.

In December 2006 there was a performance in the Basilica of St Nicholas in Bari. St Thomas Becket is patron of nearby Mottola.

The opera in two acts by the Italian composer Ildebrando Pizzetti is now being staged in English by the Chelsea Opera Group with Sir John Tomlinson (bass) as Archbishop Thomas Becket.

This South Bank performance is on Saturday 28 March at 7.30pm; tickets £17 – £45. A pre-concert talk for ticket-holders is at 6.15pm.

The TS Eliot play was recently staged at nearby Southwark Cathedral and will be performed later this year in Canterbury Cathedral where it was premiered in 1935.