music by David Bruce · words by Anna Reynolds

Take a deep breath, grab the gas and air and join us on a roller coaster journey through one of the most extreme, yet most commonplace dramas that a human being can go through…

Part 1 Nimmy Cleaners 1 Cara Cleaners 2 Maddy

Interval

Part 2 Mary Cleaners 3 Angela Cleaners 4

act one: 40 minutes interval: 20 minutes act two: 35 minutes The Company PUSH!

Maddy Tara Harrison Composer David Bruce It is a really tremendous pleasure to welcome audiences to the world première Cara Rachel Hynes Librettist Anna Reynolds of PUSH! After seven years of working with many composers to develop their Cleaner Jacqueline Miura Director Bill Bankes-Jones writing of through the performance of short works, including two by Nimmy/Mary Helen Withers Music Director Tim Murray David Bruce, it is a huge step, and a real pay-off from this investment in the Sal/Angela Louise Mott Designer Tim Meacock development of these great artists, for us to present a full-length work by one Ram Richard Coxon Lighting Ian Scott of our ‘graduates’. Writing during some of the most inspiring rehearsals I’ve Cara’s Lovers James Edwards Repetiteurs Kelvin Lim ever experienced, I am really confident that PUSH! will once again realise our Caretaker Mark Richardson Sarah Nicolls mission with new work, to prove that a challenging evening of contemporary Production Manager Simon Sturgess opera can make a really great night out for anyone. Other roles are played by members of the Costume Supervisor Caroline Hughes company Company Stage Manager Marius Rønning It is an act of huge faith and generosity on the part of Aldeburgh productions and the Genesis Opera project to pass on this wonderful piece to Tête à Tête, Technical Stage Manager Dan Franklin Instrumentalists: and we can’t thank them enough. Equally heartfelt thanks go to the major Wardrobe Manager Sarah Grange Violin 1 Helena Wood supporters for this production, the Genesis Foundation, Arts Council , Violin 2 Kate Robinson Assistant Stage Manager Lizzie Dudley and our wonderfully generous individual supporters, without whom we could Cello Miriam Lowbury Administrator Anna Gregg never have produced anything. We could never have done this without you, Double Bass Elena Hull Print & Publicity Design Jeremy at JADED and hope you thoroughly enjoy the result. Flute Katie Bicknell Photography Hugo Glendinning Clarinet Stuart King Press Maija Handover Bassoon Matthew Dodd Bill Bankes-Jones 020 7377 2831 Horn Evgeny Chebykin Artistic Director, Tête à Tête Tour Transport Lightning Trucks Trumpet Joe Sharp Set construction Set-Up Scenery Ltd Trombone Roger Williams Accordion Ian Watson Percussion Stephen Gibson Piano Daniel Becker A special thank you for their help with Developed by Aldeburgh Productions through PUSH! goes to: ATC, Alexandra Tucker Developed by Aldebu the Genesis Opera Project and presented in and baby Joshua, Claire Summerfield, the Genesis Opera P association with the Genesis Foundation. Mehrdad Seyf and baby Eve, Mark association with the Supported by the Arts Council of England. Montgomery Smith, Mosquito Bicycles, Supported by the Ar Salisbury Playhouse, Trestle Theatre, Tony and Gill Cash, Patrick and Louise Grattan, Tara Harrison, Matthew Hart, Caroline Steane, Natalie Steed, Fiona O'Mahony, Jane Plumptre, www.londonschoolofdiving.co.uk Both the libretto and the full score are available online at www.pushopera.com. Birth Plan: Nimmy

1 I’d really really like to NOT have, like, drugs? 2 I don’t wanna lie down, so if I do, get me up! 3 We’re gonna so have some incense and patchouli oil and stuff in the room if that’s kool 4 Can we use the birthing pool? And does my bloke need to bring his trunks? 5 Please don’t shave my pubes!!!!! Unless you have to of course for the baby’s sake, it really icks me out to even THINK about it

“Once I started pushing, nothing mattered anymore. I was overcome with the irresistible urge to push, and within minutes, it seemed, my daughter was born” A mother in conversation with Anna Reynolds. Birth Plan: Cara

1 Under no circumstances should any of my husbands be allowed in the delivery room. 2 I do not, repeat not, want to be offered an epidural. Just Say No. 3 I would like my acupuncturist to be at the birth but if she’s busy with Madonna or Kylie, then her assistant will do. 4 I do not intend to breastfeed – so last decade – so please have a bottle ready.

“Just spoke to scary woman about birthing pools; ‘an opera about child birth how wonderful! PUSH! What a terrible title, don’t you realise childbirth is about the empowerment of women, It is not about shouting PUSH! at them.’ I ran.” Tim Meacock Birth Plan: Maddy

1 The prisoner would not like any drugs during the birth, no matter how bad the pain gets.

2 The prisoner would prefer not to see the child when it is born but to hand it over straight away.

3 The prisoner would not like music, incense or any soothing nonsense.

“HARD LABOUR - EXCLUSIVE: WOMEN PRISONERS FORCED TO GIVE BIRTH WEARING CUFFS by David Leslie PREGNANT women prisoners have been forced to give birth while handcuffed to male security guards, the News of the World can reveal. Despite complaints from doctors and midwives, the guards often refused to leave the delivery room or remove the shackles, say insiders. And last night a relative of one traumatised girl stormed: ‘This is disgusting. What possible security risk do pregnant women pose to prison staff? Women in labour have more on their minds than escape.’” News of the World, May 21 2006 Birth Plan: Mary

1 I’d like to float away on a combination of gas, air and dreamy dreams please.

2 I’d like my husband to be at my side, although due to an unfortunate absence ever since the conception, he won’t be here. However, if he does appear, please do show him in!

3 I understand women in labour can be irrational- so please ignore me when I begin shouting and cursing, I’m only fucking human after all.

4 Please put all my babies onto my tummy as soon as they’re born- I’m so fat there will probably be room.

“I was with a mother who sang all during her labour. Her voice crescendoed with a lilting ‘Come’ during each contraction. I sat across the room and observed her in the room dimly lit with candles as she began to push. With each ‘Come’, her body seemed to close. After a while, I walked over and gently suggested that for this new phase of labour, she might try singing ‘Go’. With each ‘Gooooo’, her body opened, and she said she could feel her baby move through her pelvis.” A Midwife Birth Plan: Angela

1 I would like someone to take photographs of my baby as he is born.

2 I know this will be unbearably hard. I am so sorry that I have to ask this. I need to see what he looked like, you see… it’s all I will have.

3 If I cry, please don’t try to comfort me. Just let me be.

4 After the birth, please let me have some time alone with the body.

5 I have brought some clothes. They are special. Please let me dress him.

“In any case, the ear has this incredible memory. But the ear, let us not forget, starts operating on the forty-fifth day of the pregnancy of a woman. That means the foetus that is in the womb of a pregnant lady begins to use his ear on the forty-fifth day of the pregnancy, which means it has seven and a half months advance over the eye.” Daniel Barenboim’s Reith Lecture no. 2, 2006 Birth Plan: Cleaner

1 A birth plan?

2 Yes, I plan to give birth. Thank you.

3 Oh. I see. A plan for how.

4 I would like everything possible to be done for the safety of my baby. I never thought I would have one, you see.

5 I don’t want any fuss. I’m only having a baby. People do it all the time.

“He knew and felt only that what was being accomplished was similar to what had been accomplished a year ago in a hotel in a provincial capital, on the deathbed of his brother Nikolai. But that had been grief and this was joy. But that grief and this joy were equally outside all ordinary circumstances of life, were like holes in this ordinary life, through which something higher showed. And just as painful, as tormenting in its coming, was what was now being accomplished and just as inconceivably, in contemplating this higher thing, the soul rose to such heights as it had never known before, where reason was no longer able to overtake it.” Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina PUSH!

HOW IT HAPPENED by composer DAVID BRUCE

THE FIRST EMAIL Anna and I first met as the crowds gathered for a previous Tête à Tête show back in February 2002. This was my second operatic excursion, Has it Happened yet? featuring three very old ladies wheeled out to watch a solar eclipse. A mutual friend had brought Anna along and we hit it off straight away. A year later, in March 2003, Anna came across the Genesis Opera Project’s call for entries. The project was aimed to help develop new operatic talent and the selected entrants would apparently get the opportunity to write and hear a full operatic work. Anna dropped me a casual email with the details asking simply: “Of interest to you— or you/me?” – Anna. And that was the beginning of PUSH!

THE BIRTH OF AN IDEA An obvious first thing to do was to swap scores and scripts. I gave Anna the blaring, bell-ringing intro to Seven Tons of Dung, and she gave me several scripts, including one called Goodbye Stranger, which instantly grabbed me. It had sharp and witty dialogues, which hinted at profound truths without being didactic or preacherly; but perhaps most striking to me was the structure – it was a series of about 30 short scenes, all featuring couples in bed – effectively a series of one- night-stands.This shape gave us a mutual starting point.What I had enjoyed about the previous Tête à Tête shows was their sketch-like structure which allowed for a huge range of expression in a very audience-friendly way. If you didn’t like the current 10-minute segment, something very different would be along shortly. Anna’s idea of a series of one-night-stands was both brilliant and unrepeatable. We struggled to find an equally compelling subject. The idea of a series of births popped into my head quite randomly, but the more we mulled it over, the more it seemed to fit. As the most dramatic moment in most people’s lives, it seemed extraordinarily operatic and indeed bizarre that there had been no previous birth – and besides, it’s the logical outcome of Anna’s previous one-night-stands script. How it happened How it happened

MEETING THE PANEL continue what we had achieved in Has it Happened Yet?: a light-hearted framework which becomes surprisingly intense and moving. I never wanted to When we finally met the Genesis Opera Project Panel in late Summer 2003 we write a straight-forward comedy, and one of the shows Anna and I had both loved were still pretty vague about where we were going. I do remember we were – Shock-Headed Peter – we both equally felt had lacked an emotional or human imagining babies and baby voices quite a bit – far more than we ended up with, core. It was great fun, but so what? We wanted to do something bigger than that and I remember David Pountney asking me how these babies would be presented – perhaps as marionettes? “Yes, more like marionettes” I answered And on this side of the equation, Anna came up with an incredibly dark scene – I didn’t yet really have a clue. called “Maddy”, a bleak and desperate depiction of a prisoner chained to her maternity bed; and then the indescribable beauty and heart-ache of “Angela”. FORGING THE LIBRETTO We were now well on our way to a complete libretto, but what we still didn’t So the panel gave us the go-ahead. Anna was to produce the entire libretto and quite have was the overall sense of how these scenes would gel into a I was to set 20 minutes or so to music, for a workshop presentation the coherent and meaningful evening, and that would still take some time to find… following Spring. A TRIP TO ALDEBURGH There followed probably the most tense month of the project as Anna produced some initial scenes and we negotiated the tricky foothills of collaboration. This We were invited by the Genesis Foundation to Aldeburgh in late Autumn 2003 is the stage that projects sometimes fall apart, and it requires diplomacy, tact for a chance to hear some actors read through what we had of the libretto. I and above all patience on both sides. I think Anna initially saw opera as lots of found this very stimulating, and it brought out hidden dramas in the text which red plush and horn-helmeted Brunhildas. I told her to just write the same way I might not otherwise have discovered. One good example of this is that builders she writes for the stage. That was our first breakthrough.. entrance I mentioned earlier in “Mary”. Director Will Kerley brought a marvellously manic intensity to the reading, and during Mary’s speech, after the Anna then produced an early draft of what is now the first scene, Nimmy. It was builders have come in, he himself added a rumbling, spluttering background a gritty drama featuring a young girl and although I loved the writing, I still felt sound effect of the distant chainsaws as she spoke. It was exactly the right it hadn’t quite clicked into place yet as a libretto. I sat down with my wife Gosia feeling - Will’s rôle translated into a deep rumble on the double bass in the full one day and talked it through, a bit frustrated and not sure what to do next. score, but more than that the atmoshpere of a rather placid, spaced-out Mary Gosia suggested it needed to be more fantasitic and colourful. There was some sitting atop a furnace of mechanical activity was what really inspired the music mention of football in the Nimmy scene – “turn it into a football match, get the at that point and I’m very grateful to Will and the actors for finding that. crowd on stage” she suggested. WORKSHOP AT SADLERS’ WELLS I knew this was right, and once I’d communicated this sense of fantasy to Anna the penny dropped. Within a few days she produced Cara, with her three At the orchestral workshop at Sadlers’ Wells in Spring 2004 I got to hear 20 distorted lovers and a birthing pool which turns into an underwater world full minutes of my music, setting Cara and Nimmy. After the performance there of shipwrecks and skeletons; a re-drafted footballing Nimmy; and most was an open discussion, and one lady in the audience asked why would spectacularly, Mary, an IVF woman who tells stories to the 5 restless babies in anyone be interested in an opera about giving birth, what made us choose such her womb, before some builders with chainsaws come in and erect screens a subject? To my surprise I found the answer I had rehearsed in my head about around her like a construction site. Wow! this didn’t sound convincing when I said it out loud, so I knew we still had a bit more work to do in understanding what this opera was really about. I agonised But she didn’t stop there. One of my pitches to the Genesis panel had been to over the summer of 2004 about this. How it happened

ENTER THE TÊTE’s In late summer 2004 I awoke to the realisation that what I had hoped to create all along was a Tête à Tête show. I wasn’t yet imagining Tête à Tête would actually produce it, but in my mind I could see the show needed to have that vivid, life- loving theatricality that Tête à Tête shows exude. This is how the idea of cleaners in the maternity ward arrived – it seemed a way of keeping the wit and theatre in the piece and preventing it from becoming too ‘worthy’. Anna wrote some perfect little cleaner sketches, including a first one with no dialogue at all - just the off- stage screams from the labouring mothers. It felt right. But we still hadn’t sorted the final scene, and even the order of the scenes seemed to fluctuate. Enter Bill Bankes-Jones, director of Tête à Tête and my librettist on both the previous mini-operas. Bill had come along to the Sadlers’ Wells performance and had expressed an interest in directing PUSH! and possibly even getting Tête à Tête involved in producing the final show. Out of his repository of theatrical knowledge Bill dredged It’s a Girl!, a little- known musical from the 80s about four women at Greenham Common, one of whom gives birth at the end of the show. The script reads as a straight-forward, almost prosaic description of the progress of the birth, and culminates, hilariously, in a jolly cabaret song full of crescendoing “oooos” There was something about the simplicity and directness of that birthing scene that really appealed to me. I realised our final scene should present birth ‘as it is’, without the fantasy, a normal woman giving birth in a normal way, in all its normal extraordinariness. Our new cleaner seemed the unrivalled candidate for the role.

ANSWERING THE QUESTION By now I felt I had finally found the real answer to the question that the woman from the Sadlers’ Wells audience had asked. Why pick this subject, why should anyone come and see it? I was clear now that this piece was above all else a celebration of the sheer power and life-force bound up in every labouring mother. Our rather ordinary Cleaner was the heroine, and through her all our other mothers, with all the varying dramas of motherhood, life and death that they represent. It is, in short, an unflinching celebration of motherhood and birth. Coming in August - a new full-length opera based on Homer’s story of Odysseus with music by Julian Grant and a libretto by Hattie Naylor, working with spinners David Bruce, June 2006. and knitters from Shetland... Biographies Biographies

Bill Bankes-Jones Happened Yet? and Seven Tons of Dung, He has year's Salisbury International Arts Festival: his Compass Theatre Company (Moby Dick, The A graduate of the ITV Regional Theatre Young had works performed by BBC Symphony work as a recitalist is described at Seagull, The Rivals, Winters Tale, Waiting for Directors' Scheme, Bill has worked for nearly 20 Orchestra, Sinfonietta, New Music www.solobassoon.net. He has also given a Godot, Hard Times). Recent work for other years in both theatre and opera throughout the Players and others and won prizes including the number of performances of the principal companies includes The Lion & The Jewel, UK and in Germany, Japan, Korea, Austria and Royal Philharmonic Society Composition classical bassoon concertos, by Mozart, Hummel Sense of Belonging, Yerma (Collective Artistes), Sweden, including all Tête à Tête's productions Competition (1994). He runs the music websites and Weber, and premièred the concerto written George Dandin, Bent, Peeling (Graeae), To Kill a to date. He was born at home three weeks late, 8notes.com and Composition:Today. by his father Raymond Dodd. Mockingbird (Colchester Mercury). under the supervision of a Scrabble-crazed www.davidbruce.net maternity nurse. Lizzie Dudley Stephen Gibson Evgeny Chebykin Recently worked as stage manager on Cold After studying at the Guildhall School of Music & Daniel Becker Evgeny Chebykin studied at the Purcell School of Comfort, written and directed by Owen Drama Stephen worked as Musical Director on Daniel Becker has received great acclaim for his Music and the Royal Academy of Music, where McCafferty at The Latchmere Theatre and the Dein Perry's Tap Dogs European/Asian tour insightful interpretations of standard and he was taught by Richard Watkins and Michael Pinter Celebrations at the Gate Theatre, Notting playing percussion & keyboards. He is currently contemporary repertoire. He was first prizewinner Thompson. Whilst at the Academy , Evgeny won Hill. Previous theatre includes: Company Stage working with Walker Dance Park Music on a new at the British Contemporary Piano Competition in numerous competitions and prizes including the Manager on The Wizard of Oz (New Theatre, work touring later this year. He's a member of 2003, and as a result is preparing to record a CD coveted Dennis Brain Horn Prize. he is in much Oxford) Red Night, What the Women Did (Two’s Chroma ensemble and Drumstruck percussion. of works by Horatiu Radulescu for Metier demand as a chamber musician as well as an Company) 93.2FM (Royal Court) Talking to Recordings include Okho by Xenakis with Pedro Records. Daniel has worked closely with many orchestral player, performing regularly with Terrorists (Out of Joint, UK Tour and Royal Carneiro and Mathew Rich released through composers, and has given world or UK premieres London Sinfonietta, Royal Philharmonic and the Court) Tejas Verdes, Woyzeck (Gate Theatre) ‘Zig-Zag territories' and recently The Journey for of works by Edward Cowie, Alexander Goehr, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic orchestras. As a Witness (Gate Theatre, including transfer to Candoco dance company. Helen Grime, Kenneth Hesketh, Andrew Lovett, chamber musician, Evgeny performed with the BAC) The Double Bass, Hello and Goodbye, Top Arlene Sierra, Eric Tanguy and Paul Whitmarsh. Nash, London Winds and the Albion Ensembles. Dogs (Southwark Playhouse) Through the Sarah Grange www.danielbecker.co.uk Leaves (Southwark Playhouse, including BA (hons) Theatre Design: Costume Design, Richard Coxon transfer to Duchess Theatre, West End) Wimbledon School of Art. Wardrobe Katie Bicknell Studied at the Royal Northern College of Music. Majnoun (Riverside Studios) Management includes: Sunday in the Park with Studied flute at the Royal College of Music with He has performed with all the UK's major opera George, Menier Chocolate Factory, 2006. The Susan Milan, Jaime Martin and piccolo with companies, and in Europe and the USA. Recent James Edwards Quare Fellow, Oxford Stage Compnay at the Stewart McIlwham supported by three engagements have included Peter Simple, Sir James is a tenor. To list all of James’ Tricycle Theatre, 2005. Professor Bernhardi, prestigious scholarships. She won all the RCM John in Love (ENO), The Vain Man, The Little achievements is not really possible in 75 words Rose Bernd and Musik, Oxford Stage Company flute prizes and performed the Nielsen flute Prince (BBC Television), Flute, A Midsummer and would in fact be very boring indeed (phrases with Dumbfounded Theatre, Arcola, 2005. concerto as a result of winning the Concerto Night's Dream (La Monnaie), Monostatos Die like ‘cosi fan tutte’ and three letter abbreviations Forbidden, Edingburgh Fringe 2004. The City Competition in 2002. Since leaving the RCM, Zauberflöte (Florida Grand Opera) and The like ‘ROH, BBC and LSO’). Relevant information Club, Edinburgh Fringe 2004. Sarah also works Katherine has performed with the LPO, BBC Painter, Lulu (ENO). Forthcoming engagements to this production is that he is an adopted person as a Costume Designer and makes corsets for National Orchestra of Wales, and London Pro include Diego, Bird of Night for the Royal Opera who has been recently reunited with his Birth artist Martin Firrell Arte Orchestra. As a soloist, chamber and (Linbury Studio Theatre), and The Worker, La Mother, Janet. He is currently tracing his father. orchestral player, she has performed in all the Vida Breve at the Greek National Opera. www.thetenor.co.uk Anna Gregg major London concert halls and across Europe. After beginning her career at The Farnham Katherine currently lives with her boyfriend in Matthew Dodd Dan Franklin Maltings and Adonais Ballet Company she moved his pub in Suffolk with their cat, Bailey. Has an active interest in contemporary Studied metallurgy and materials science at to Pimlico Opera where she joined the Artistic repertoire, having recently performed Berio’s Jesus College, Oxford followed by stage Director in setting up Grange Park Opera. After its David Bruce Sequenza XII for solo bassoon, and The Inner management at the Royal Welsh College of inaugural season she moved on to the senior Recent pieces by David Bruce include his two Garden, commissioned from the composer and Music and Drama. Dan lives in Sheffield, where management team at The Covent Garden Festival. previous mini-operas for Tête à Tête, Has it harpsichordist David Gordon for a recital at last he is the regular production manager for She currently manages the Early Opera Company. Biographies Biographies

Maija Handover venues such as The Wigmore Hall and The Evans, Sarah Walker and Gwyneth Jones. He is Jacqueline Miura Having worked as a music publicist with Dvora Warehouse.Elena also enjoys teaching and is regular coach/MD for Royal Academy and Born in Sweden where she made her debut at Lewis PR and Global Music Network, Maija Professor at the Royal College of Music Junior London Opera Vocal. Kelvin was also member of the Royal Swedish opera Stockholm in the title started mhpr in 2000 and has since managed a Department. Her training was at the Yehudi Piano Circus. role of Tchaikovsky's Joan of Arc. She went on diverse range of projects in the UK and abroad. Menuhin School and the Royal College of Music. to sing Rosina, Dorabella and the title role of Current clients include: Contemporary Music Miriam Lowbury Carmen, in several productions and countries. Network, London Jazz Festival, PRS Foundation, Rachel Hynes Miriam Lowbury studied at Bristol University, She has sung at Sadlers Wells, the Royal Tête à Tete, fuseleeds, spnm, iF:06, nattjazz and Welsh Soprano. Rachel climbed the ranks of the Royal Collage of Music, and with the Opera House Covent Garden, the Opera Streetwise Opera. Scottish Opera from Chorister to Company Amadeus Quartet on a Leverhulme Bastille, the Barbican ,and the BBC Proms in www.mhpr.co.uk Principal, with critically acclaimed performances Scholarship. As a chamber player she has London, in opera, and concerts under ranging from Freia (Das Rheingold) to Mimi (La toured widely, played on radio and TV, and conducters such as Previn, Nagano and Tilson Tara Harrison bohème). Modern opera dominated 2005, with appeared with artists including Raphael Thomas. Graduated from the RNCM. Her most recent performances of Denise (The Knot Garden) for Wallfisch, and Jack Brymer. Her highly appearances include Fennimore Der Silbersee Scottish Opera, BBCSO, Montepulciano Festival, acclaimed recordings have been nominated Louise Mott for the BBC, Pamina The Magic Flute for Opera and a workshop performance of Stuart for a Gramophone Award, and gained the top Studied at the Royal College of Music. She North, Servant in Param Vir’s Ion for the Opera MacRae’s King of the Wood for EIF/ROH2. Future rating of five stars in the BBC Music made her débuts at English National Opera as du Rhin and Music theatre Wales and number of engagements include 4th Maiden in Strauss’s magazine. Miriam is a member of Double Bradamante Alcina, Welsh National Opera as appearances a the Almeida Opera, most notably Elektra, the opening concert of the 2006 Image, which has held residencies at Annio, La clemenza di Tito and Opera North as as Tattoed Lil The Eternity Man and the Young Edinburgh International Festival. Southampton University and the University of Annina, Der Rosenkavalier, followed by Woman in The Cherry Station by Fumio Tamura. www.michaelletchfordartists.co.uk the Third Age. Her education work includes Fidalma, Il matrimonio segreto. She has sung She has appeared as Natasha The Electrification workshops in schools, universities and several roles for the Early Opera Company, and of the Sovet Union for MTW, Frasquita Carmen Stuart King prisons, and teaching at the Junior Royal is also recognised for her expertise singing for Opera Holland Park, Marie Wozzeck for Stuart began playing the clarinet aged nine. College of Music. Miriam plays on a cello by contemporary music, both on the opera stage Birmingham Opera Company and Miss Jessel Since graduating from the GSMD in 1997 Stuart Thomas Dodd made in 1812. and in concert. Forthcoming engagements The Turn of the Screw and Lucy Lockett The has been enjoying a rich and varied career include Odysseus Unwound for Tête à Tête. Beggar’s Opera for Broomhill Opera. performing, recording, teaching and Tim Meacock leading/devising education-outreach projects. Trained at the Motley Theatre Design Course. Caroline Hughes Much in demand as soloist, chamber and Previous designs for Tête à Tête: Family Tim Murray Caroline has worked with Bill Bankes-Jones and orchestral musician, Stuart has performed Matters, Six-Pack, Orlando Plays Mad, Shorts Studied at Cambridge University, Royal College Tim Meacock on Die Fledermaus for English throughout the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Far also with Bill Bankes-Jones: Grazyna, Bird of of Music, and Britten-Pears School with Oliver Touring Opera, Nitro the Rivival at the Opera East, South Africa and North America. Stuart is a Night, Another America: Earth (ROH2/Nitro), Knussen. He has recently conducted The House and various opera projects for the Opera founder member and Artistic Director of Die Entführung aus dem Serial (Läckö Gentle Giant for Royal Opera House on the Theatre Company in Dublin and the English acclaimed chamber ensemble CHROMA. Slottsopera), Die Fledermaus (ETO). Other Road, The (Little) Magic Flute for ETO, Tobias Touring Opera. recent designs include: Rumpelstiltskin and the Angel for ETO/Young Vic, The Turn of Kelvin Lim (Unicorn Theatre), Birdsong (The Other Place, the Screw for Pigott’s and Down by the Elena Hull Kelvin Lim studied at the RCM and works as RSC), Vàclav Havel’s Beggars Opera, Saint’s Greenwood Side for Clarion Music Theatre. Tim Elena is one of the most sought-after young repetiteur for a number of opera companies Day, The Road to Ruin (The Orange Tree made his Proms debut in 1999, aged 21, with double bass players. She divides her time including; ROH2 Opera Genesis, ENO, Opera Theatre), Five Finger Exercise, Rutherford and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, between London orchestras and the Royal Holland Park, Royal Academy of Music Opera, Son, See How They Run (Salisbury Playhouse), returning in 2002 for the Julian Anderson Liverpool Philharmonic, where she is also Bampton Classical Opera, Wagner Society Betrayal (Northcott Theatre, Exeter), Blood Composer Portrait. He has also performed with occasional guest Principal with ’10-10’, their Mastersingers. Kelvin has worked with John Wedding, The Tempest, Waiting for Godot, The BBC Singers, Psappha, National Symphony contemporary music group. She performs new Tomlinson, Anthony Rolf-Johnson, Elizabeth Crucible, The Provoked Wife, The Duchess of Orchestra of Ireland, RCM New Perspectives music both as a soloist and chamber musician in Connell, Diana Montague, Barry Banks, Anne Malfi (Mercury Theatre Colchester). Ensemble, and Nottingham Philharmonic. Biographies Biographies

Sarah Nicolls received a first class honours degree. She has LSO under Sir Colin Davis in London and New RPO Concerto Orchestra since 1987 and the Big Winner of the British Contemporary Piano since been working as a successful musician in York, and Tchaikovsky 6 with the LPO under Bands of Stan Tracey and Colin Towns. He was a Competition 2000, Sarah is a leading new music England and abroad. She is a keen chamber Vladimir Jurowski. He is currently on trial for the founder member of The Home Service and Brass pianist. She recently gave the World Premiere of musician and has performed in many major 2nd Trumpet position with the RTÉ Concert Monkey. Philip Cashian’s concerto with the London London venues such as the Wigmore Hall, The Orchestra in Dublin. For the last two years he Sinfonietta, commissioned by the BBC. In 2005, Queen Elizabeth Hall and St Martin’s in the Field. has also been artistic director of the award- Helen Withers projects included a concerto with the BBC She plays with the English Chamber Orchestra winning brass dectet, Brass10. An experienced This year's second prizewinner of the Handel National Orchestra of Wales, a performance at the and also recently worked with the Scottish performer of ‘lighter’ music, he recently Singing Competition and the Thelma King Queen Elizabeth Hall of music by Luigi Nono and Chamber Orchestra. recorded with the LSO and Sarah Brightman at Award, Helen Withers has performed at the festival performances in Reggello and Ravello EMI Abbey Road, and has worked extensively on Aldeburgh and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals. Roles Italy, Warsaw’s Royal Castle, the KlaraFest in Marius Rønning both the London and touring productions of include Dorabella (Cosi), Brigitte (Iolanta), title Belgium and the Aldeburgh Festival. Sarah also Graduated from RADA in 2001 where he trained Edward Scissorhands. role Xerxes, and the understudy of Idamante for launched her debut solo CD and began a as a Stage Manager. Since then he has been Glyndebourne Touring Opera. Her concert Lectureship in Music at Brunel University. working freelance. He has worked on Tête à Tête’s Simon Sturgess repertoire includes Bach's B Minor Mass, www.sarahnicolls.com Shorts and Six-Pack. Other companies include Simon is a freelance Production Manager whose Mendelssohn's Hymn of Praise, Handel's Trestle (Mask), Royal College of Music, New Kent recent work includes Sunday In The Park With Messiah, and Mahler's Ruckert Lieder. In recital Anna Reynolds Opera, English Touring Opera, Wee (Dance), The George at the Menier Chocolate Factory and she has performed at the Purcell Room, Anna's stage plays include Jordan (Time Shout, Actors Touring Company/Soho Theatre Wyndhams, Blasted for Graeae and various Barbican Hall, Fairfield Halls, and at Ravinia Out/Writers Guild award winner), Wild Things Company. Marius has worked on UK tours and has projects for Circus Space. For Tête à Tête he was Festival in Chicago. Her future engagements (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Deep Joy (Mercury experience of working in Italy, France and Norway. Production Manager for Orlando Plays Mad. shall include Gretel for Opera! Festival in Colchester), Look At Me (Theatre Centre), Ring Holland, Rossini's Petite Messe Sollennelle, Road Tales (Watford Palace), Left Luggage Ian Scott Ian Watson Mozart's Requiem, and a recording of English (Trestle Theatre Company) and many others. She Ian has designed the lighting for many Ian graduated from the Royal Academy of Music song for the Delius and Gurney societies is currently the Royal Literary Fund writer-in- productions throughout the UK and Europe. in 2000 with the coveted Dip.RAM. He has a residence at the London College of Fashion. Her Recent projects include: Child of the Divide busy freelance career, which has included Helen Wood latest play, Blue Sky State, will open this autumn (Tamasha/Polka Theatre), The Crock of Gold included performances with the CBSO, BSO, Helena Wood began playing the violin at the age at the Mercury, Colchester. She has also written (Storytellers), The Escapologist (Suspect Culture), BCMG, London Sinfonietta, ROH, ENO, ETO, BBC of three and is now regarded as one of Britain’s for BBC2, is working on a feature film for Screen Sinner (Stan Won’t Dance), Blasted (Graeae), NOW, BBC CO, BBC SO and the LSO. Ian also leading young violinists. As a chamber musician East and is editor of the UK's biggest website for Longitude (Greenwich Theatre), Knots (Coisceim appears with contemporary music ensembles and orchestral leader, Helena is in great writers, www.writewords.org.uk. Dance Theatre), Thalidomide!! A Musical 'Icebreaker' and in summer 2004 joined the demand. She performs chamber music regularly (Phocomedia) and The 39 Steps (West Yorkshire band of the 'Divine Comedy' including with musicians such as John Lill and Freddy Mark Richardson Playhouse). Ian is an Associate Artist of Suspect appearances at Glastonbury and the Montreaux Kempf and is a guest leader with a number of Bass-. A student of Joy Mammen and Culture and a regular collaborator with the Jazz Festival. More recently he has performed chamber orchestras in England. recent graduate of ENO young singers pioneering theatre company, Graeae. with Sophie Solomon (violin) and will tour with programme, Mark this year made his Covent her band from 2006. Garden debut as Professor/Corporal Mors in Joe Sharp Nielsons Maskerade. Future plans include Joe works as a freelance trumpet player based Roger Williams Vaarlaam for Reis Opera and Charrington in in London, having graduated from the Royal After leaving the R.A.M in 1976 Roger has Maazel's 1984 in Spain and Italy. College of Music in 2004 with a First Class worked in nearly every field of the music honours degree. He regularly appears with both business from Theatres to Session Work. In Kate Robinson the London Symphony Orchestra and the 1981 he Co-founded Music Projects/London Kate is a graduate of the Royal College of music London Philharmonic Orchestra. Recent with Richard Bernas and was a regular member where she studied with Rodney Friend and engagements include Verdi’s Requiem with the of Capricorn. He has worked regularly with the Genesis: Nurturing Emerging Talent in the Arts

In June/July 2006, the Genesis Opera Project, in collaboration with Aldeburgh Productions, culminates in performances of: Sante by Emily Hall, composer; Kit Peel, writer Push! by David Bruce, composer; Anna Reynolds, writer The Original Chinese Conjuror by Raymond Yiu, composer; Lee Warren, writer

The Genesis Foundation is proud of its track record in commissioning quality work and in encouraging emerging talent in the arts. Remember all those traditional and old-fashioned sweets you used to get as a Working with the very best Artistic Directors and their teams within established arts child, hard boiled sweets like, Rhubard & Custard, Bulls Eyes, and liquorice institutions on: sweets like Pontefract Cakes and traditional toffee sweets like, Merry Maid • the Genesis Directors Project at the Young Vic Toffees, you do? • International Playwrights at the Royal Court Theatre • and a new initiative, OperaGenesis, developed in collaboration with ROH2 Well, you’ve come to the right place. Mrs Browns Traditional Victorian Sweet at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden Shop has hunted down nearly 300 traditional, old-fashioned and forgotten the success of the Foundation’s work is the result of the highly focused attention and sweets from days gone by. We only sell traditional sweets and old fashioned undiluted resources Genesis is able to give to each select project. sweets, so if your looking for modern sweets or chocolates you’ve come to the Following the completion of the Genesis Opera Project, Genesis remains committed to wrong sweet shop!! the process of developing new operas through OperaGenesis. This new programme is designed for anyone interested in making or supporting new opera, of whatever kind Mrs Browns Traditional Victorian Sweet Shop is a real old fashioned sweet and on whatever scale. shop. If you are ever in the beautiful town of Battle, East Sussex please pop in and say you’ve seen this ad and we’ll give you a free bag of traditional sweets, Become involved in moving Opera forward just ask any body to point out the traditional sweet shop, they all know us If you are a composer, writer, director, designer, choreographer, critic or simply an interested around here observer of contemporary opera; if you think opera has a future as a living, creative artform, then you should join OperaGenesis at www.operagenesis.com Or write to: Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London WC2E 9DD

From The Times’ review of the première of Emily Hall and Kit Peel’s Sante: “The big news is simple. Youth is on the march, making and singing a Mrs Brown’s Victorian Sweet Shop · 4 Abbey Green · Battle TN33 0AL · UK dynamic new opera, worth everyone’s Telephone: 01424 774989 time and hopes.” www.mrsbrowns.co.uk The Genesis Foundation is the arts project of the Studs Trust. Registered charity number: 1084555 www.genesisfoundation.org.uk Tête à Tête Tête à Tête

Tête à Tête was founded in 1997 by Bill Bankes-Jones, Katie Price and Orlando Tête à Tête Get involved! Jopling to bring uplifting, surprising, daring and intimate opera productions of 51 Alton Gardens, We depend completely on the very the highest quality to the widest possible audiences. Twickenham TW2 7PD generous help of you, our audience, t: 020 8288 5892 for every show we put on. Every show Its first production, The Flying Fox, (die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss), was e:[email protected] is supported by at least 100 very performed at BAC Opera 98 and at the Purcell Room. w:www.tete-a-tete.org.uk generous people, giving anything from £5.00 to £5,000 - we really Shorts was first performed at BAC Opera 99, revived Bridewell Theatre Spring Chair: couldn’t do it without you. 2001 and toured the UK, including the Huddersfield Contemporary Music David Leeming Festival and Canterbury Festival, Autumn 2001. If you would like to be involved in this Deputy Chair: way, please make a donation via With Orlando Plays Mad, a new edition by the company, Tête à Tête performed Matthew Hart www.tete-a-tete.org.uk, or else contact Vivaldi’s ‘Orlando Finto Pazzo’ at BAC Opera 2000 for the first time since the Directors: Jane Blackstock, composer himself staged it in 1714. Jane Plumptre Secretary to the Friends, Kenneth Richardson Spring 2002, the company performed its second programme of short Tête à Tête, commissioned operas Six-Pack in a co-production with ENO Studio, playing to Company Secretary: 19 Corsica Street, packed and delighted houses in London, and again on tour the following Autumn. Caroline Steane London N5 1JT. In May 2002, the company performed the world première staging of Britten’s Secretary to the Friends: Canticles in Westminster Abbey, working in conjunction with clients in five centres Jane Blackstock for the homeless across London, in a co-production with Streetwise Opera. Artistic Director: Bill Bankes-Jones Tête à Tête performed Family Matters in 2003-4, which was a reworking of the third Beaumarchais Figaro play by Amanda Holden and six young Administrator : composers. In R&D workshops at BAC over 400 members of the public made Anna Gregg a significant input into rewrites, before later Performances in London and Consultant: around the UK. Sarah Playfair Autumn 2006 sees the company tour Odysseus Unwound (formerly A Shetland Odyssey) a new full-length opera based on Homer’s story of Odysseus with music by Julian Grant and a libretto by Hattie Naylor, working with spinners and knitters from Shetland. Tête à Tête is a member of the Opera and Music Theatre Forum. Tête à Tête Donors

Amanda Adler Patricia Healey Sir Richard Aikens Daisy Jopling Ludmilla Andrew Mark and Lucy Le Fanu Primrose Arnander Rosalind Lister Jack & Leo Amiel Christopher McCann Stephen Baister Fiona McTaggart R M Bankes-Jones Jane Manning Geoffrey Barnett Rachel Monsarrat Jane Blackstock R.H.V.Moorhead Patricia Bouchier Sir Bryan & Lady Nicholson Judith Butler George Nissen Robert & Bambina Carnwath Sarah Playfair Peter Chapman Jane Plumptre Polly Coburn Sarah Prestige David & Joan Coles Lady Verity Ravensdale Concordia Foundation Jane Reilly Hunter and Anne Crawford Heather Rendle Elizabeth Dobson Ross Goobey Charitable Trust Nina Drucker Quinny Sacks Omar Ebrahim Marilyn Sansom Peter & Fiona Espenhahn Jenny Slack Andrew Farmer Lorna Seymour Elizabeth Ford Odette Siepmann T P & J M Francis Caroline Steane Peter Goff Anne-Marie Sutcliffe Louise Grattan Charles Talbot Adey Grummet Harriet Tupper Felicity Guinness John & Lesley van Kuffeler Matthew Hart Peter Verstage Amir & Pippa Hashemi Judith Weir Carolyn Hayman