Music: Laura Bowler.

Words: Alasdair Middleton.

Did you enjoy fairy stories as a child? Be careful, this production puts the Grimm into Brothers Grimm with a dark re-telling of some of the classics with no reference to Disney. With classic Tête à Tête theatrical pace enjoy these witty, sassy dark tales of magic and mayhem. Definitely not one for the children!

Director/Music: Jeremy Peyton Jones.

Words: David Gale.

What do we think when we look back on our lives? What is the mark we have left? Why are some obsessed with fame and celebrity? Are our lives empty or full? Three singers from very different vocal traditions (church choral, soul/gospel and contemporary) consider their own life stories and try to make sense of their legacies. An extraordinary theatrical sound collage follows.

Devised in collaboration with the performers David Knight, Melanie Pappenheim and Brenda Rattray, pianist Yeu-Meng Chan, electric guitarist Steve Smith and rock/improvising drummer Charles Hayward whose high-energy experimental drumming with electronics provides an “intoxicating mix of percussive attack, swirling electronics and lyrical fragment collage.” Along with sound designer Jeremy Cox, all bring their own contribution to the eclectic mix

http://www.myspace.com/jeremypeytonjones

Music: Paul Clark.

Words: John Binias. Narrator: Sarah Belcher. FitzRoy: Robert Poulton.

The friendship between Robert FitzRoy and Charles Darwin blossomed during the five years together on the Beagle. But as Darwin developed his theory of natural selection, FitzRoy became an ardent creationist and the two friends were divided by the 19th Century’s greatest intellectual faultline.This fascinating production of John Binias and Paul Clark’s chamber work for string quartet, baritone and spoken voice explores what happened when the two friends found themselves on the opposite sides of history.

www.operanorth.co.uk

Music: Robert Fokkens.

Words: Oscar Wilde & Arthur Schnitzler

Featuring: Tom Frankland (actor) and Jakob Fichert (piano)

“What would you say if I told you I had murdered?”

A thrilling journey of one man’s descent into madness. But will you be complicit as his confession unfolds and his sanity disintegrates? This moving story told in music, words and drama brings together text from ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, with episodes from Arthur Schnitzler’s ‘Flight into Darkness’. Look forward to a deeply disturbing yet compelling theatrical encounter.

“Highly original…It is impossible not to be completely enthralled…” Daily Info, Oxford

www.soundsunderground.org

Music and Words: Brian Inglis

Featuring: Loré Lixenberg

Designs by Paul Burgess

Where Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads meets The Exorcist; surely an experience not to be missed. Margery is a woman on the edge. Her business has failed, she is estranged from her husband and to top it all she is tormented by voices threatening to destroy her. Will her faith keep her safe or will she be burnt at the stake? Will this desperate housewife survive? And at what cost? Tête à Tête is delighted to host the finished version of a show presented as a work in progress at our 2008 festival.

http://www.composer.co.uk/composers/inglis.html

Music: Michael Henry.

Words: Adey Grummet

The knife thrower’s assistant cannot stand the pain of her secret love for the knife-thrower. Barney the horse just dreams of running in straight lines. Alice, the trapeze artist longs for the deadly sensation of falling. 3 brilliantly executed vignettes portary circus performers desperate to bre ak the daily cycle of their act. It will leave you laughing, spellbound and utterly entranced.

Words and Music: Richard Thomas

Hotfoot from his worldwide mission (Sydney Opera House/Carnegie Hall)  to spread operatic joy and pain,  Richard Thomas (Jerry Springer The Opera/ BBC Kombat Operas ) is released for one night only from his gimp box to plumb the shallows of his cavernous X-rated song cycle, “1001 Songs About Anything”. Glad to oblige, ready to annoy.
Featuring Richard Thomas on the early consort spinnet; Lore Lixenberg on Howling and Adey Grummet on Wailing. Funny and moving and especially funny if you’re moving.

Music: Elfyn Jones.

Words: Tim Satterthwaite

Jacko’s Hour is a retelling of the classic Western High Noon, set in present-day England. For the Opera Festival, Opera Engine present a multimedia extravaganza, meshing opera and film, music and drama. There’s blood in the dust of a US frontier town, and in the dry mud of a Yorkshire fairground. A righteous man must stand alone!

www.operaengine.org.uk

Music: Fergal O’Mahony

Words: James Richards

Featuring: Abi Titmuss

Smile! The paparazzi are in town. Gutter Press – The Opera takes place on the front lines of the oversexed, overexposed and under-fed feeding frenzy of starlets and snappers that make up the Fame Game. Enjoy this edgy satire that bristles with wit and squirms with sleaze. Flash a bit of flesh and leave your scruples at the door….

Music and Words: Omar Shahryar

Director: Oliver Platt

An injured and distressed creature turns up on a farms’ doorstep. What is it? A monkey?  A disfigured man? But when this mere ‘beast’ starts to talk, become the star of the circus, but seems to be unhappy to be just a performing animal, who is going to listen? Huddle round for this intriguing and compelling new work, based on the postmodern fairytale by children’s fantasy writer Nicholas Stuart Gray.