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.