Tête à Tête Opera Festival

Tuesday 24 September 2013

Works by RCM composers at this year’s Tête à Tête Opera Festival at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith met with huge success over the summer.

Erick Flores’ And The Crowd Wept, based on the life of reality TV star Jade Goody, played to sold-out houses and generated considerable publicity, with positive reviews from both the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph. The RCM had much involvement in the production: RCM singer David Hansford starred in the main role of Narrator, the opera’s orchestra was made up of RCM musicians, and the RCM gave some financial support to the project.

Arne Gieshoff’s Viagron and Na’ama Zisser’s Black Sand also received successful first performances at the festival, in what was an outstanding summer showing for RCM composers.

Tête à Tête is a London-based opera company whose primary mission is to reach new audiences and to extend the boundaries of traditional opera. Their 2013 festival of new opera and opera-in-the-making hosted more than 30 world premieres.