Johnny’s Midnight Goggles

Pavilion Theatre Brighton 12th May 2008 www.brightondome.org/events/events
A one-man operatic thriller.

Johnny's been kidnapped, the Black Camel of Takrilakastan has showed up and a mysterious pair of goggles has opened a portal to another world. Midnight is fast approaching and the chase is on to rescue Johnny.
Johnny’s Midnight Goggles is a mind- and genre-melting explosion of story-telling, ravishing singing, virtuoso cello-playing and sonic wizardry - Tim Burton meets John Adams, Arnold Schwarzenegger meets Edith Piaf, Philip Pullman meets Paganini. Witty, nail-biting and entrancing.

Returning with their third show, SharpWire are cellist/singer/theatre performer, Matthew Sharp and writer/composer, Pete M Wyer. Their spellbinding work has been acclaimed around the world
We are delighted to announce that following a showcase of Johnny’s Midnight Goggles as work in progress at last years inaugural Tête à Tête The Opera Festival we have joined up with Sharpwire to co-produce the final stages of development. Johnny’s Midnight Goggles is A Sharpwire Tête à Tête co-production supported by caravan.

Tête à Tête The Opera Festival
31 July – 17 August 08
Riverside Studios, London
www.riversidestudios.co.uk
Booking opening July 08

This is the second Tête à Tête The Opera Festival. A three week showcase of everything fresh and exciting in new opera. A low risk non competitive environment where creators can make new, or take a new slant on old, opera hand in hand with their audiences, where feedback is encouraged and anything goes.

Watch this space for updates as programming progresses. Safe to say it will be intimate, exciting, daring , sometimes just outlandish, but always hugely enjoyable, invaluable and inspiring.

The Cumnor Affair
An Elizabethan Murder Mystery
November 2008
London and UK touring

We are delighted to announce the commission of a new opera with music by Philip Cashian and words by Iain Pears. It is a one act opera for 6 singers and 7 instrumentalists.

It opens at Cumnor Place --(Dudley's country seat just outside Oxford) – The servants are discussing how Dudley should get rid of his wife so that he would be free to marry Queen Elizabeth I , with whom he is having an affair. If he did they would become servants to Royalty. Whilst the servants are off at a county fair Dudley’s wife is found dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs…………….

Philip Cashian is “a composer of abundant imagination and elegance”. He is also Head of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music.
Iain Pears is a leading historian, journalist and a renowned author, books include the international best seller An Instant of a Fingerpost.

Future Projects:

The Bald Soprano
Spring 2009
Paris, London and Vienna

Based on the absurdist French play by Eugene Ionesco "La Cantatrice Chauve" or "The Bald Soprano” is an exciting co-production, with the Genesis Foundation. This a new commission by Jean Philippe Calvin.