Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 2024 Introduction July 2024 & Postscript August 2024
Earlier this year I stumbled across a rough video of a younger me I’d recorded during the 2011 riots – remember them?! – in which I found myself saying:
“Something extraordinary has happened through the festival which is these terrible riots we’ve had across the country, and lots of pieces have completely changed what they – what they mean because the riots have just delivered an audience to us in a completely different mood. People are anxious, people are re-evaluating, they are thinking about deep issues and the pieces we’ve been putting on help them do that. It’s like dreaming or something; it helps you process your thoughts, you rehearse for life by entering a fantasy world.”
This feels more apposite than ever now. Deep down, I don’t think we’re over the pandemic; we have more to process. We’re also looking back, after the election, over more than a decade of gaslighting by politicians. With pressures of government funding for the arts – and indeed funding for everything – Brexit, the cost of living crisis, and the very real threats of war, climate change, AI and the harsh binary amplification of new media, we are in ever greater need of the collective imaginings, wide horizons, human dreams and suspensions of disbelief that open us up to brighter possible futures.
It’s an amazing tribute to our artists that, in the face of all these vicissitudes, they have the grit and vision to come from across the globe to try and make their dreams come true, in order to share them with you, our audiences in person, in London and online.
As ever, none of this would be possible, let alone the very busy year Tête à Tête has had making work ourselves in Cornwall and the North-East, without the staunch support of Arts Council England and our many individual sponsors and trusts, foundations and everyone who has helped make it all happen. Not to mention our cherished venue partners at The Britten Theatre, The Cockpit and King’s College, London. We thank each and every one of you.
Then, of course, there’s you, our audiences, without which there’d be nothing. We very much hope you’ll enjoy time spent with us and that we’ll manage to lift your gaze at least for a little while, help you process your thoughts, and enable you to rehearse usefully for life.
Bill Bankes-Jones
Artistic Director, Tête à Tête
25th July 2024
POSTSCRIPT 8th August 2024:
Little did I know when I wrote this two weeks ago that the awful racist violence we’ve seen since was about to erupt.
On behalf of everyone involved in Tête à Tête, I’d like to extend a message of sympathy, support and love to every single person who feels threatened by recent events.
We began the company in order to make a more inclusive space for opera. We are proud of our track record, welcoming everybody on equal terms, and with maximum respect for over quarter of a century.
We have been repaid in spades by the glorious diversity of the artists who have put themselves forward to make work with us, and on many occasions by bold and brave productions that face up to the worst of human behaviour with the invincible force that only the arts can muster.
In the face of the deplorably bigoted, racist threats and violence that have taken place over the last fortnight, it’s definitely time for we, ourselves, to confront all this in the way we best know how, by welcoming in the widest range of people we can to address the big issues of life on our stages and with our audiences, to audit our own organisation to make sure that we are genuinely 100% anti-racist, and again to extend the strongest messages of welcome, trust, warmth, support and love that we can to anyone feeling the brunt of what is happening.
As Darren Henley has just written on behalf of Arts Council England:
“When we emerge from this crisis, cultural organisations and artists will play a crucial role – as they have always done – in beginning new conversations, offering fresh answers, and bringing communities back together”
We are here for you.
With love,
BBJ Thursday 8th August 2024
Head over to our At A Glance or Festival Listing pages to explore what’s on.