Over nearly three decades Tête à Tête has supported more than 500 world premieres all over the UK. Can we help make your dream come true?

 

When programming the Festival, our key criterion is artists with a burning passion to see their particular dream come true. 

 

We want to make sure that we can to help artists in our Festival beyond just giving them a venue. We’re not looking for perfectly-polished shows that could go on anywhere, but artists who want help in developing their practice creatively, or learning new skills in producing, marketing, and other parts of the process. We want to enable shows to come to life which might otherwise remain just an idea.

 

If you would like to create your own production in Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival,  please send us your idea to info@tete-a-tete.org.uk, answering the following questions:

 

– Your name

– Mobile number

– Your role in the project

– Your idea

– What is it about your project that makes you really care about it?

– How do you think being in Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival will develop you and your fellow artists?

– Tell us about a Tête à Tête show you enjoyed and what you thought about it. [Don’t worry if you haven’t seen one live; you can watch almost everything we’ve produced or hosted online.]

 

We will get back to you when we can, and start talking about how to make your vision become a reality.

 

What happens?

 

The first step will be a conversation with one of the Tête à Tête team, giving you access to their wealth of experience. Your conversation might involve  advice about the sector, recommendations of possible collaborators and sources of inspiration, or of people who could support or help develop your work.

 

We work hard to make sure that every artist pitching a show for the Festival gets something useful out of the experience. It can also help us identify where an artist might need extra care and support in bringing their show to life, or on occasion, sensitively help artists to understand they might not be quite ready yet. We do everything we can to support Festival artists, especially those from unexpected backgrounds and following unconventional routes into opera.

 

Timeline

 

There are more applicants for the Festival each year, and only some of the artists we speak to go on to produce work in a Festival. This may be a Festival within three to six months of the initial conversation, but can end up being a Festival one, two, or even three to four years later. It all depends on what is best for a particular artist.

 

Try as we might to do it earlier, the programme almost always ends up being finalised towards the end of April.

 

We hold a wealth of advice on making shows HERE.

 

Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival takes place early autumn. Over the years, we have made or hosted operas with themes as broad as war, gaming culture, love, serial killers, spinning and knitting, the Soviet Union, friendship, circus, the Egyptian empire, bees, aliens, necrophiliac gay ducks… All are warmly welcomed. Share your idea with us today!

 

If you would like contribute your skill to someone else’s show, as singer, director, designer, producer or really anything you can imagine, then please go to this page and answer the questions there.