Hull Urban Opera gets up close & personal, Emma Wheeler & Anna Appleby bring together two musical worlds: Tête à Tête takes the opera festival to Newcastle

This year Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival not only returns for its 18th edition, but is expanding and there with performances in Newcastle and London. Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival is at Alphabetti Theatre in Newcastle on 27 and 28 June, and then moves to the Cockpit in London from 22 September to 5 October.

The Newcastle performances build on Tête à Tête's collaborations with North East artists and the Royal Northern Sinfonia developed over several years. Tête à Tête is partnering with North Tyneside Music Education Hub to deliver QUEST 2025—a fantasy-inspired opera project running over Summer & Autumn 2025 co-created with young people in North Shields, rooted in community storytelling and bold new music-making, culminating in performances on Sunday 19 October at The Exchange 1856 2025. QUEST brings together school pupils, community chorus members, professional singers, and Royal Northern Sinfonia.

At Alphabetti Theatre in Newcastle, Hull Urban Opera will be bringing their show It must have been Tuesday. Created by the company's artistic director, Russell Plows as a preparation for performers in an up-close, immersive style of performance, the aim of the show is to remove all potential barriers to communica7on (no set, costume, character or libretto - the words are the singers’ own) resulting in a warm, direct delivery of often sensitive ideas conveyed through both speech and singing. The stories were first presented in Hull in 2021, and in Newcastle the true stories at this performance are written and performed by Neil Balfour and Joanna Gamble accompanied by Ellie Gaynard Evans on violin with music by Russell Plows.

Ghost is built on Emma Wheeler and Anna Appleby’s life experience as queer, neurodivergent women – stories that have not historically been told in opera, tinged with comedy, trauma, and love. This opera is the coming-together of two musical worlds, from Appleby’s Glyndebourne and BBC Philharmonic opera composition history and Emma Wheeler’s rich mezzo vocals, to Norrisette and Rosé Gold’s grungy underground electronica and DIY drag fashion extravagance. Prepare for a ghost story like no other!

Other works include the intriguing Rossini and the Overture, based around the premise of a man impersonating Rossini and failing to finish the opera! This is a work-in-progress sharing as the team test out their new approach to opera. And there are also four festival shorts, operatic extracts and experiments, from Newcastle and the surrounding area.

Full details from the festival website.