The Opera Revolution Starts Here
Tête à Tête is the future of opera.
Led by Artistic Director Bill Bankes-Jones with Music Director Timothy Burke we are a producing opera company and through our productions and opera festivals work with all kinds of artists to develop the artform.
You can see our past productions On Demand and explore our 2020 Festival. You can also read about our history here.
Artistic Director
Bill Bankes-Jones
Summarise your role in 20 words
Founder and driver of the company, dreaming up what we do together with our great team… and then doing it!
What has been your favourite moment as part of the Tête à Tête team?
Particularly special are those moments when a project gets real ignition between audience and artists, It’s what we always aim for and great that we can so often hit that.
What’s your favourite Tête à Tête production?
Flying Fox, Shorts, Six-Pack, The Canticles with Streetwise Opera, Nine Festivals, Salad Days, Pop up Operas always, Dart’s Love, Icarus, Daughters of the Elements, The Last Seed and many many more, too many to choose from!
Music Director
Timothy Burke
Summarise your role in 20 words
Developing, rehearsing and conducting the new operas we commission; helping Bill with Festival curation. Bringing new music to life.
What has been your favourite moment as part of the Tête à Tête team?
I think my favourite ever moment was the day we made Dart’s Love in 2013, the first piece I conducted for Tête à Tête. I met the instrumentalists from CHROMA for the first time that morning – I’d been so nervous that I wouldn’t get to work with them before the day of the performance – and then they played it as if they’d been playing it all their lives. The whole Tête à Tête team were buzzing about the theatre doing everything at once, achieving what a national opera company would take 10 days to do in 1 day. Incredible.
What’s your favourite Tête à Tête production?
If I had to pick one, it’d be The Last Seed by Na’ama Zisser. I think it is like absolutely nothing else I’ve ever heard. The way 5 unusual male voices, all clustered around alto & tenor ranges, blend and intertwine, sharing out the words in a sentence, all wreathed around by the sounds and textures of CHROMA – it was a very special piece to create.
Administrative Director
Anna Gregg
Summarise your role in 20 words
The seat belt, mirror, indicator, manoeuvre… with many tire changes, petrol re-fuels, new brakes and buckets of acceleration. *Polish depending
What has been your favourite moment as part of the Tête à Tête team?
The whole ride, but the best bit is talking to our artists about how we can make their time with us the best it can be. Mind you I do love rushing to the loos post performance to listen in on what audiences really thought about a show.
What’s your favourite Tête à Tête production?
Push!, Amerika, The Last Seed, Salad Days, My Mother My Daughter, The Cumnor Affair but also pretty much everything in every festival for its sheer ambition.
Our People
Chairman
David Leeming
Trustees
Julian Wright
Katie Price
Mindy Kilby
Nick Sutcliffe
Omar Shahryar
Richard Ault
Vera Chok
Management Team
Artistic Director Bill Bankes-Jones
Music Director Timothy Burke
Administrative Director Anna Gregg
Technical Director David Salter
Consultant Sarah Playfair
Associate Ensemble CHROMA
MarketingLeo Doulton
PressWildkat PR
Tête à Tête History
1998
The Flying Fox
1999
Shorts
2000
Orlando Plays Mad
2001
Shorts
2002
Six-Pack (co-production English National Opera)
Britten’s Canticles (co-production Streetwise Opera)
2003
Family Matters (work in progress)
2004
Family Matters
2005
Shetland Odyssey
2006
Odysseus Unwound
Push
2007
Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 1
Blind Date
2008
Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 2
The Cumnor Affair
2009
Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 3
Salad Days 1
2010
Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 4
Salad Days 2
2011
Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 5
2012
Circus Tricks
Great Expectations (in association with the Royal College of Music)
Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 6
Salad Days 3
2013
Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 7
2014
Hogarth’s Stages (in association with the Royal College of Music)
Grind
Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 8
2015
Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 9
2016
Crime & Punishment (in association with the Royal College of Music)
Cubitt Sessions, Kings Cross 1
2017
Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 10
Cubitt Sessions, Kings Cross 2
Belongings (Co-commissioned and co-produced by Tête à Tête and sound)
2018
Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus (in association with the Royal College of Music)
Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 11
Cubitt Sessions, Kings Cross 3
2019
Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 12
Cubitt Sessions, Kings Cross 4