1. We are artists who make opera.
2. Our world is limited only by the boundaries of our imagination.
3. We can do or make anything.
4. We work together, and together with our audiences. We will not make art in isolation.
5. A defining feature of our work is that our artists affect our audiences and our audiences affect our artists in real time.
6. This escalating spiral of creativity can only happen when human beings come together in the same space.
7. This can be a real space, or a space in our imaginations.
8. We propose an imaginary world in which a real festival of real opera performances can take place.
9. We will build and share this world together.
10. We will share our creative processes as we construct this dream as much and as widely as we are able.
11. This sharing may be online, but will not be defined by that, and will take other forms as well.
12. We will work hard to include those who do not have access to the online world, and to include those who cannot access the physical spaces of opera.
13. We will strive to make our festival and imaginary world as inclusive as possible.
14. We hope and aim to make this festival in the ‘real’ world, but also believe that its imagined manifestations have a very great, real value.
Read more from Bill Bankes-Jones about The Manifesto here.
Bill Bankes-Jones, Artistic Director, Tête à Tête
Tim Burke, Conductor, Music Director, Tête à Tête
Chris Taylor, Co-Producer/General Manager, Hive Opera (The Hive)
Julia Mintzer, Stage Director, Bread and Circuses
Elfyn Jones, Opera Maker, Sonopera (The Trilobite, Or The Fall of Mr Williams)
Leo Doulton, Artistic Director/Librettist, Virtually Opera (We Sing/I Sang, The Last Party on Earth)
Joanne Roughton-Arnold, Soprano/Company Director, formidAbility
Martin Bussey, Words and Music, Timeless Figure
Sarah Playfair, Consultant Tête à Tête
Ellie Knight, Roustabout-but-staying-in, South Downs Yodelling Collective (Early and Often)
Laure Meloy, Soprano/Artistic Director, Femme Lunatique (One Art, the podcast)
Phil Gault, Baritone/Script Editor, Rocket Opera/Black Sheep Opera
Lindsay Bramley
Sarah Dacey, Singer/Composer
Muelas+Ward, Creators, Muelas+Ward (A&E)
Helgi R. Ingvarsson, Composer and performer (Music and the Brain)
Jeremy Richardson, Graphic Designer (Jaded)
Hans Vercauteren, Composer and Conductor, Story Tree, (Rain)
Gunnar Gudbjörnsson, Tenor (Doctor in Music and the Brain)
Laura Reid, Composer (Isis, Goddess of Love)
Gareth Churchill, Composer, formidAbility
Roswitha Gerlitz, Writer/Dramaturge, Artist (Of Body and Soul, Bee the Bee, Shadowplays, Gravity)
Edward Lambert, Composer, The Music Troupe (The Last Party on Earth)
Mark Johnston, Musical Director (Bread and Circuses)
Liam Wade, Composer (Bread and Circuses)
Emily Thorner, Singer (Queen in The Last Party on Earth)
Jasmin Kent Rodgman, Composer/Director (Skin)
John Savournin, Singer, Director, and Artistic Director, Charles Court Opera (Olga’s Story)
John Sturt, Composer (Minutes to Midnight: A Nuclear Opera)
Sophia Chapadjiev, Librettist (Minutes to Midnight: A Nuclear Opera)
Frances M. Lynch, Singer, Composer, Director, electric voice theatre
Tim Benjamin, Composer, Director, The Radius Opera Company
Russel Plows, Artistic Director, Hull Urban Opera
Alessandro Talevi, Director
Bradley Travis, Opera singer/Associate Artist (Learning & Participation), English Touring Opera
Jack Furness, Director & Artistic Director, Shadwell Opera
Carola Darwin, Singer/Musicologist, Royal College of Music
Tom Guthrie, Stage Director/Performer, Music and Theatre for All
Angharad Cooper, Producer-Consultant (Isis, Goddess of Love)
Nicola Wydenbach, Musician, CARVE CoLab
Jon Bromwich, Executive Producer, British Youth Music Theatre (Goblin Market)
François Matarasso, Community artist and writer, Traction
Tina Ellen Lee, Artistic Director, Opera Circus
April Koyejo-Audiger, Creator, Aukoko (Bubbles the Zebrafish & the No. 8 Bus)
Charlotte Marlow, Composer, Medusa Collective (Fruit Bowl)
Helene Mathiesen, Singer/Producer (Fruit Bowl)
Lucy Bradley, Director (Moon Woman)
Matteo Fania, Composer, Theorikon (Siddhartha)
Giovanni Privitera, Librettist, Theorikon (Siddhartha)
Christine Aziz, Librettist, Imaginary Opera (Isis, Goddess of Love)
Nadine Benjamin, Soprano and Founder of Everybody Can! Opera, Coaching and Mentoring
Camille Maalawy, Mezzo Soprano and Arabic singer
Toria Banks, Director and Writer, HERA
Jenny Sealey, CEO/Artistic Director, Graeae Theatre
Charli Eglinton, Composer, Lyricist, Librettist (8 – A Steampunk Opera)
Anna Vienna Ho, Composer/Pianist (The Buddha, the Monkey King and the Monk of the River)
Naomi Kilby, Singer/Producer, Opera Alegría
Clare McCaldin, Singer, Producer, Artistic Director, McCaldin Arts
Georgia Barnes, Singer/Composer, Nine Muses Opera (A Time of Empty Tales)
Adey Grummet, Singer/Lyricist/Conductor
Darren Berry, Composer, Reptilian Productions/Gus Robertson Presents, The Crocodile of Old Kang Pow
Linda Hirst, Singer and Teacher, Hera
Miketeu, Writer
Ann Liebeck, Artistic Director/Singer/Lyricist/Producer (Latin Rediscovery)
Helen Caddick, Composer/Producer
Alice Farnham, Conductor
Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Mezzo-Soprano
Gerry Cornelius
Laura Hudson, Soprano