The Burning Question The Music Troupe at the Tete-à-Tête Festival The Cockpit, London NW8 8EH Thursday 1 September 2022 music by Edward Lambert words by Norman Welch & Edward Lambert with additional material by Ambrose Bierce (1842 - ca. 1914) and the Latin Requiem Mass |
![]() Director: Jim Osman
Design: Alexa Moore Arianna: Rosalind Dobson (soprano) The Pope: Mae Heydorn (mezzo-alto) Ignacio: Martins Smaukstelis (tenor) S. Pietro: Eugene Dillon-Hooper (bass) |
Attended by a roguish demon and a guardian angel, the female Pope has died. She now wants nothing less than a cosy retirement in paradise, but Someone has other ideas and the elevator going upwards gets stuck. It's a Day of Wrath! Will Pietro, the Caretaker, be able to fix it? What is it that he knows? Accompanied by piano duet and a choir of heavenly voices, this is a satire that confronts the ridiculous, the sublime, love, death and comic opera all at the same time.
Coming up...
The Duchess of Padua
a parlour opera in four acts after the play by Oscar Wilde Performances planned forJanuary/February 2021 have been postponed A Gothic drama of revenge, passion and murder turned into a ‘parlour opera’… In this early play by Wilde, the beauty of his verse mattered more than the realistic portrayal of character and the credibility of the drama. At times melodramatic, at times sentimental, with everything in between, this adaptation faithfully follows the twists and turns of Wilde's extraordinary plot and reveals it to be more modern than it seems. Designed to make a big impact in small spaces this is a grand, ‘Italian-style’ opera with arias, ensembles, a love-duet, and a death scene condensed for just four voices and piano duet. The performance lasts about 1 hour 40 minutes including interval |
What's still to come: