Push!

Blind Date - The Big But

Blind Date - Houses

Blind Date - Feathered Friend

Family Matters

history

Tête à Tête was founded in 1997 by Director Bill Bankes-Jones, Conductor Orlando Jopling and administrator Katie Price.

A History of Great Nights Out

Innovative challenging high-quality opera can make a great night out for everyone. 10 years ago Tete a Tete was born from this passion and the belief that opera can touch people’s hearts and therefore change their lives like no other art form, and that this power should be felt as widely as possible. Time and time again our bold new approach to opera has generated projects which have absolutely touched people’s lives and exerted a very strong influence across the sector, attracting new audiences and pointing the way towards a viable opera of the future, for both audiences and artists.  Over the past decade we have employed over 200 artists to present the world premières of 34 stage works by 29 different composers, to thousands of people from South Devon to Shetland. 

“I am not familiar with opera, but I loved the content. It surprised me by having poetry and grandeur and I did not expect that with modern music” (audience feedback from Blind Date R&D)

Our first production The Flying Fox, ('die Fledermaus' by Johann Strauss), was performed at BAC Opera 98 and at the Purcell Room. This success was promptly followed by  Shorts  first performed at BAC Opera 99, revived at the  Bridewell Theatre Spring 2001 & the first touring work of the company (Autumn 2001), supported by the Arts Council of England and in the main through donations and a tremendous vote of confidence by Trusts and Foundations. This pattern of support continued to enable us to produce   Orlando Plays Mad, Vivaldi's 'Orlando Finto Pazzo' in a new edition again premièring at  BAC Opera in 2000. 

In February 2002, in co-production with the ENO Studio, the company presented Six-Pack, a second wildly successful compilation of short operas by a rich mix of composers, revisiting the Bridewell Theatre then on the road for our second national tour.

In May 2002, the company explored  a new avenue of community work and music and performed the world première staging of Britten's Canticles in Westminster Abbey, working in conjunction with clients in five centres for the homeless across London. This was a co-production with Streetwise Opera and the London Jubilee String of Pearls Festival.

 “I could sing a hundred praises of this superb stage premiere, yet still undersell it.  This was peripatetic drama at its best: powerful, involving, sympathetic, touching, inspiring… a community-generated staging of such delicacy, refinement, wisdom and originality that Deborah Warner might have plotted every move.”  Roderic Dunnett, The Times, 2002.

Following such a busy year the company returned to the cycle of a London premiere and national touring with Family Matters in 2003-4, which was a reworking of the third Beaumarchais Figaro play by Amanda Holden and six diverse composers. Workshops were held at the Battersea Arts Centre where over 400 members of the public contributed aural and written feedback on the first draft. Performances then took place at the Bridewell Theatre and across the UK.

In August 2005 we began the journey of exploring deeper possibilities of Research and Development across art forms with an odyssey of our own, Odysseus Unwound. After a period of R&D with 5 Shetland knitters and spinners a workshop version was the first opera to be performed in the UK’s most remote community in Fair Isle, filmed by BBC 2’s Culture Show. 8 months later  in Autumn 2006 the final version of Odysseus Unwound composed by Julian Grant opened in London at the beautifully derelict Alexandra Palace in conjunction with the Knitting and Spinning Show and toured to Norway and throughout the UK, finishing in the Shetland. The production was accompanied by an extensive education programme led by Chroma.

During this time David Bruce and Anna Reynolds’ new opera Push!,  presenting  the labour of six birthing mothers had been developed under the banner of Opera Genesis and Tete a Tete took on to produce it in Summer 2006. This was our first visit to Riverside Studios and the beginning of a partnership which has seen both organisations flourish.

It was after the huge successes of 2006 with Odysseus Unwound and PUSH! that it was apparent many, many individual artists and talented groups were exploring how to use words, music, staging and the human voice to energise, entrance, entertain and engage with the public. Following our own experiences over the past 7 years we also saw that support was scarce for these artists and thier work, especially at a very early stage both in terms of finances available and a platform to present the work to an audience. We had only been able to progress because of the support of established venues such as BAC, The Bridwell and ENO Opera Studio the vehicles for promoting new talent and that as these organizations have all now closed there was nowhere at all offering the chance for groups and artists to take their very first stumbling steps in a supportive low-risk environment.

We felt in the turbulent arena of arts it was now our responsibility to take up the challenge and use our experience, infrastructure, excellent public profile and access to resources to give a chance to a new whole generation of opera creators and audiences, to bring a whole new lease of life to the art-form itself. To help others in the same way we had been helped, from this passion came Tête à Tête The Opera Festival.

“It has really galvanized my work on the new opera, the project has made quantum leaps since the decision to use Mary and actually sing some arias – I wrote them very quickly but the amount of ideas that sprang forth as a result have been indispensable to the progress of the opera.” (David Bruce on the 1st R&D stage of The Taming of the Shrew at the during The Opera Festival)

The inaugural Festival Summer 2007 was a huge success and comes out of our desire to be seen as not just a producing opera company, but also one that plays a key role in the development of artists and audiences for new opera outside our own portfolio of productions. The festival builds on and is an extension of developmental events like line dancing and speed dating, as well as giving artists the opportunity to test ideas and gain audience feedback, it also gave the audience the opportunity to share in and gain insight into the creative process.

In these times of financial strife where the demand on the public funding system is too high and companies must be as lithe and creative behind the scenes as on the stage we have to harness and keep hold of our mission and focus on what makes a great night out and our commitment to investing in the artists who make that work. We can so often get embroiled in the delivery  -  we are thrilled we are now at the stage where, for Blind Date at least, you are sharing with us all a night of the best, maddest, funniest, and most moving of music and song.