Tête à Tête is a charity based in Cornwall that creates opera and helps others to make it, supporting anyone with a love of the art form. Taking a playful yet pathfinding approach to what opera could be, the company sets its sights far into the future, exploring the many unexplored possibilities of the art form. This is noticeably seen through their achievements: having commissioned, produced and premiered over 100 operas and hosted almost 600 more through its annual festival.

Tête à Tête has reached over a million people in 64 nations, and it is now hard to find artists working in new opera who haven’t grown, at least a little, under their wing.

Currently operating across Cornwall, Tyneside, London and online, recent highlights include the 2026 Rain Show, which toured North Tyneside schools, working directly with primary school children through workshops that brought music and storytelling into classrooms in an accessible and participatory way.

Past event included the 2025 Opera Festival, which ventured outside London for the first time to celebrate artists across Newcastle and London; The Joy Of Opera, a two-day participatory celebration of everything the art form can be; QUEST, an intergenerational community project weaving together an original opera by local schoolchildren and a version of Wagner’s Rheingold; and GALA in North Shields, which brought together an intergenerational community cast of 200 alongside the full force of the Royal Northern Sinfonia.