operas all over the riverside studios, in foyers, theatres, and public places across the borough including: Ravenscourt Park, Bishop’s Park, Lyric Square and Fulham Palace.

Golden Years – Music: Jordan Hunt & La JohnJoseph

The Upper Clapton Senior Citizens Light Operatic Society is back in town! Septuagenarian soprano Livinia Greengarden is about to take to the stage in the most wildly anticipated show of her career. In the audience is notoriously prim, Claudine d’Armoire, Hackney’s art’s council funding co-ordinator. Will all go well?

Lear TV – Music: Joanna Lee. Words: Howard Skempton

Inspired by Edward Lear’s The Duck and the Kangaroo. Set in a news channel (a super-dramatic American one) two presenters; Ed (a vain and gregarious duck) and Sheila (a stunning bimbo of a kangaroo) fall in love and are leaving the screen to ‘hop the whole world three times round’.

Toxic Assets – Music: Joe Cutler. Words: Peter Burt

Mr Green comes to see Ms Wise about opening an account to save money to buy a house. Mr Wise persuades him to opt for a high interest structured product and to part with large sums of money deposited in a piggy bank. What happens next is a modern day parable based on our current ‘credit crunch’ times.

The Inventor… - Music & Words: Dominique Le Gendre.

An athletic and twinkly-eyed Eastern European waiter flirts playfully with a giggly lady-who-lunches  on a sunny terrace. Through an exchange filled with double entendre we hear his vigorous lament and yearning for a place in his own corrupt, poverty stricken country.

Performers: Singers Danny Broad & Louise Mott, Accompanied by Tim Murray/JP Gandy and Stuart King, Director Bill Bankes-Jones.

Dates/ Times & Venues

Thursday 30 July, 5pm Lyric Square

Friday 31 July, 5pm Furnival Gardens

Thursday 6 August, 5pm Lyric Square

Friday 7 August, 5 pm Furnival Park

Saturday 8 August,  3pm Lyric Sq, 4pm Ravenscourt Park, 5pm Furnvial Gardens

Sunday 9 August,  2pm Fileders Meadow Bishops Park, 3pm Normand Park

Thursday 13 August, 5pm Lyric Square

Friday 14 August, 5pm Furnival Gardens

Saturday 15 August, 3pm Lyric Square, 4pm Ravenscourt Park, 5pm Furnival Gardens

Sunday 16 August, 2pm Fielders Meadow Bishop’s Park, 3pm Normand Park

Featuring:

Sarah Dacey (soprano), Rob Fokkens (compère),Matt Dibble (clarinet), Alice Dixon (cello), Belinda Jones (piano).

Cabaret Fou make a welcome return after their 2007 Festival performance. They explore the genre of cabaret song, from its beginnings in French cafes, post war America, to 21^st Britain.  A hugely exciting range of output will come from Laurence Crane, Geoff Hannan, Roger Marsch, Graham Fitkin and Kerry Andrew. Feel entertainingly uncomfortable with songs that are rude, lewd, disturbingly beautiful, provocative, sinister, hilarious, politically twisted, melancholic and definitely sadistic.

“colourful, challenging and witty. There’s a talent there for the irreverent.” –  Classical Source

 www.robertfokkens.co.uk

Music: The company .

Words: Jacek Ludwig Scarso

Dance-theatre meets opera in this visually striking story of Medousa, the ancient Greek legend. The critically acclaimed Vocal Motions Elastic Theatre follows Medousa after her lustful encounter with Poseidon. Full of foreboding for her body’s terrifying transformation, she foresees Perseus, searching for her in order to use her petrifying gaze as a weapon of his own. Yet the waiting is strangely enticing…

 www.elastictheatre.com

Music: Evangelia Rigaki.

Words: W. N. Herbert

Featuring: Darren Ellis & Nicolas Simeha

Little Instruments of Apprehension is a song and dance for doctor and patient, for popstar and public, for the infectious and the susceptible, the living and the dead. Rich or poor, victim or bully, optimist or obsessive, we all want to be in control, to resist the reality of our mortality and our environment. Everything we know and fear is taken in by the five senses and their organs — eye, ear, nose, mouth, skin. These small apertures are protected, groomed and invaded by a series of little instruments. Exploring what we mean by sickness and health, crossing the border between mind and body, challenging the sovereignty of the individual, the cast will use objects ranging from domestic items to medical equipment to examine our daily libations and disinfections. The protective becomes percussive in a very contemporary dance of death.

Music: Cheryl Frances-Hoad.

Words: Paul Wilkinson

Soprano: Natalie Raybould. Clarinet: Catriona Scott. Cello: Oliver Coates. Bassoon: Tom Oxley

The Wizard of Oz is the inspiration for this brilliant story of three 30-something women – Sarah, Tania and Leonora – who are preparing for Dorothy’s hen night. With modern character flaws of an inferiority complex, commitment issues and fear of leaving a turbulent relationship, they each seek their own ‘Dorothy’. Can the bride-to-be resolve their crises?

                                                                                                                                               Mat Smith -  matsmithphotography.com

http://twitter.com/GoldenHatOpera

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Music and Words: Neyire Ashworth 

Director: Kath Burlinson

The wonderfully engaging clarinettist Neyire Ashworth explores the riveting personal story of her Anglo-Turkish upbringing, using only her own voice and clarinet. A solo tour-de-force!

A clarinettist of terrific character and imagination – Financial Times

The stunning clarinettist, Neyire Ashworth – The Independent

Music & Words: David Bruce and Errollyn Wallen.

Two extraordinary song writers are featured here. David Bruce’s beautiful songs of childhood, recently premiered at Carnegie Hall (Piosenski) as well as brilliant virtuosic composer Errollyn Wallen’s 2009 commission of ancient folk tales.

www.chromaensembl.co.uk

Music: Mark Glentworth.

Director: Sally Burgess.

Musical Director: Jeremy Silver.

Words & Story: Carolyn Hérail.

Stellar opera singer Sally Burgess makes her directorial debut collaborating with Jeremy Silver, an internationally renowned Musical Director, with a showing of the first act of the dramatic and evocative Ula by Mark Glentworth. Following  this year’s west-end triumph of “On the Waterfront”, Mark combines his critically acclaimed theatre writing and modern opera in this exciting new work to an original story by Carolyn Hérail. This tense thriller sees a New York film writer lost in the Highlands and guest of a fisherman and his daughter, Ula. Intoxicated by her and her mysterious past, a story of love unfolds but with unexpected consequences.

Director: Roswitha Gerlitz.

Music: Catherine Kontz. 

Featuring a contortionist, performing shadows and video Shadowplay explores the interdependence of shadow and substance, inspired by Dada artist Kurt Schwitter. It playfully explores the real and imagined, unites chaos and order and investigates the search for beauty.  A great example of how bold new work is created through the festival, as all two creators met in previous years.

A story that has never before been told.  A stream of music against a backdrop of images takes the audience on a journey to Belize (their country of origin), to London, to New York; crucial marking places in the Wallens’ personal and professional lives.  Their unconventional upbringing forced them to re-define and challenge notions of belonging, distance, and boundaries. These have also been important driving forces in their music-making. WALLEN will be the first time that Byron and Errollyn have collaborated together as a duet; in this unforgettable show, bringing together the genres of classical, jazz, world and popular music.

www.errollynwallen.com

www.byronwallen.co.uk

www.myspace.com/byronwallen

“Among the highlights of the eclectic Tête à Tête Festival is Errollyn Wallen’s family-inspired show. She tells Time Out about how she and her brother turned blood into music” see below link.

http://www.timeout.com/london/classical/article/280/tete-a-tete-festival-wallen