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Tête à Tête, opera review: Hit-and-miss is all part of the fun of the festival

Future classic?: The cast of ID, Please: Claire Shovelton
Future classic?: The cast of ID, Please: Claire Shovelton

Whatever you think opera is, it’s a safe bet that Tête à Tête Opera Festival will at some point confound your expectations. Over three weeks, it offers several dozen new operas, with sundry pop-ups and even a podcast opera. If it’s a bit hit-and-miss, that’s part of the fun.

Opera North’s Youth Company made its London debut with Dr Ferret’s Bad Medicine Roadshow, not quite as raucous as the title suggests. Stephen Deazley’s music was nine parts West End musical, one part Kurt Weill, while Martin Riley’s witty text adapted Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales. Whitaker Mills acted as narrator, while the Youth Chorus milled about purposefully. If a little more mischief and mayhem would not have gone amiss, there was abundant energy.

Soosan Lolavar, a British-Iranian composer, nearly fell foul of Donald Trump’s first travel ban. She eventually got through so as to complete the opera she was writing with librettist Daniel Hirsch. Their subject? The problems facing travellers trying to enter the United States.

With the aid of Jessica Medenbach’s video projection and Stephen M Eckert’s succinct staging, ID, Please proved powerful, moving, even amusing. Lolavar’s music, both vocal and orchestral, found the right blend of menace and compassion, and the three singers were exemplary. A future classic? You just never know.

Until August 23, The Place; tete-a-tete.org.uk