Short and sweet | 3 September 2011

During August the only opera-going possibility used to be a festival, of a fairly grand kind, but in recent years the small, ‘alternative’ opera companies that are proliferating have sensibly taken either to continuing throughout the summer, as the big opera houses don’t, or to having their own festivals.

During August the only opera-going possibility used to be a festival, of a fairly grand kind, but in recent years the small, ‘alternative’ opera companies that are proliferating have sensibly taken either to continuing throughout the summer, as the big opera houses don’t, or to having their own festivals. In London in the past couple of weeks there was Tête-à-Tête in Hammersmith, which I wasn’t able to get to, but which offered an extensive programme of shortish works; there was the Grimeborn Festival in Dalston, agreeably parodying Glyndebourne, but offering a wider range of operas; and the indefatigable OperaUpClose, which continues nightly at both the King’s Head in Islington and the Soho Theatre.

The Grimeborn Festival still takes place in the Arcola Theatre, but that has now relocated, and is very close to the new Dalston Junction overground station. I’d have liked to see several things there, but in the event only got to one, Barefoot Opera’s version of Handel’s Alcina. Barefoot’s programme is discouraging. It reads in part: ‘We research ways to use voices and bodies with minimal instrumentation, tell a story as an ensemble, and are working towards the formation of a cooperative company with an integrated and distinctive artistic vocabulary.’ Did they employ consultants, or can everybody write this kind of gunk now?

In the event, Alcina was in large part enjoyable and moving. The Grimeborn rule seems to be that operas should last about an hour, which seems a first-rate start.