A Dance-Dream and a Modernist masterpiece
Thursday 5 & Friday 6 November, 7:30pm
Saturday 7 November, 2:30pm
At the Tower Theatre, Stoke Newington
Fête Galante is one of only six operas written by English composer and suffragette Ethel Smyth. Described by Smyth as a ‘dance-dream’, in this rarely performed chamber work a cast of Commedia dell’Arte characters navigate love, jealousy and mistaken identity, with a dark twist.
Façade Entertainments combines the witty and sophisticated music of William Walton with Edith Sitwell’s bold, Modernist poetry. While Sitwell’s elliptical language, her neologisms and her unconventional delivery of the poems shocked 1920s London audiences, the piece has since been recognised as an iconic work of the Modernist period in Britain.
Fête Galante and Façade Entertainments will be accompanied by a live chamber orchestra in the intimate setting of the Tower Theatre.
Tickets £25 (£15 concessions)
Buy Tickets
Thursday 5 November at 7.30pm
Friday 6 November at 7.30pm
Saturday 7 November at 2.30pm
Cast
Fête Galante
The King: Henry Grant Kerswell
The Queen: Emma Roberts
The Lover: Robert Forrest
Columbine: Rosalind Dobson
Pierrot (5-6 November): Felix Kemp
Pierrot (7 November): James Geidt
Harlequin: Ethan Jacobs
Chorus Ensemble: Catherine Bröker, Maisie O’shea, Vasilisa Yumatova, Hera Protopapas, Harry Reddish, George Rice
Façade Entertainments
First Narrator: Adrian Dannatt
Second Narrator: Catherine Coldstream
Production Team
Director : Walter Hall
Conductor: Gloria Gamboz
Repetiteur: Elspeth Wilkes
Costume Design: Katie Higgins
Instrumentalists
Violin 1: Maren Bosma
Violin 2: Will Clark
Viola: Charlie Howells
Cello: Thomas Vidal
Double Bass: Isabel Garcia Gonzalez
Flute/Piccolo: Jack Welch
Oboe: Polly Bartlett
Clarinet/Bass Clarinet: Luke English
Alto Saxophone: Robert Finegan
Bassoon: Hugh Woolley
Trumpet: Nick Walker
Horn: Siân Collins
Percussion: Max Heaton
 Henry Grant Kerswell is a bass singer whose repertoire spans opera, contemporary music and musical theatre. His recent work includes performances and covers with companies including Opera Holland Park, Grange Park Opera and Wexford Festival Opera, alongside appearances in critically acclaimed contemporary productions. He trained at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. His operatic repertoire includes Benoît and Alcindoro (La Bohème), Fasolt (Das Rheingold) and Simone (Gianni Scicchi). He has worked across a range of genres, from established repertoire to contemporary opera. |
 Emma Roberts attended National Opera Studio 22/23, is an artist with Samling, Britten Pears and Orsay-Royaumont. A graduate from RCM Opera School 2022, Emma won both 2nd prize and song prize at the Kathleen Ferrier Awards, 1st Prize in the Joan Chissell Schumann Competition, 3rd prize in the International Schumann Competition Zwickau 2024 and 2nd prize for Bampton’s Opera Young Singers’ competition 2025. Recent engagements include the title role in Britten’s Rape of Lucretia with HGO in April and title role in Carmen with Devon Opera July 2026. |
 British tenor Robert Forrest is an alumnus of the National Opera Studio’s Global Talent Programme, trained at the Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and Girton College, Cambridge. Earlier this year he appeared as tenor soloist with Birmingham Opera Company and joined Scottish Opera for Dai Fujikura’s The Great Wave, covering Mr Tozaki and Nishimura Yohachi. This summer he sang Rodolfo in La Bohème for Waterperry Opera Festival, and this autumn takes on Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni with The Opera Project at the Tobacco Factory. He made his solo BBC Proms debut last summer as Don Basilio in Le nozze di Figaro with Glyndebourne, where he performs regularly and has covered roles in Tristan und Isolde, Dialogues des Carmélites and The Rake’s Progress. He also won the Helen Clarke Award at Garsington Opera. |
 Rosalind Dobson is a graduate of the University of Cambridge, Royal College of Music, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the National Opera Studio. She has worked for many of the UK’s largest companies, including the Royal Ballet and Opera, Opera North, Birmingham Opera and Garsington Opera. Recent engagements include include Elle (La Voix Humaine, Kyiv Symphony Orchestra), and Gretel (Hansel and Gretel, Longborough Opera), as well as concert appearances performing Strauss’ Vier Letze Lieder in Zürich, and a new song cycle written for her by composer Ben Lunn which premiered with the Royal Northern Sinfonia in June. |
 Ethan Jacobs is a graduate of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, studying with Christopher Turner as a scholarship holder, having previously trained at the Royal Northern College of Music. Known for his comprimario and comedic roles, his repertoire includes Don Basilio and Don Curzio (Le Nozze di Figaro), Mr Upfold (Albert Herring), Orpheus (Orpheus in the Underworld), and Sellem (The Rake’s Progress), alongside chorus work with Opera Holland Park in Die fliegende Holländer, La Traviata, La Fanciulla del West and Turandot. He works as a recording engineer and audiovisual producer with twin brother Justin through E+J Recordings, a business in development. |
 Adrian Dannatt has been performing professionally for a full fifty years in everything from mainstream TV drama to extreme avant-garde spectacle. Still best known for playing the lead in Just William, Dannatt has subsequently been a dancer on The Tube, an actor in many short films and videos, a rock show host and voiceover artist. Recently he has worked with the downtown New York playwright-director Peter BD on several notorious off-off-Broadway pieces. The short film Doomed and Famous about Dannatt which premiered at the New York Film Festival is screened at the London ICA this December. |
 Catherine Coldstream is a writer, speaker, creative writing mentor, and occasional editor of books on the arts. Her memoir, Cloistered: my Years as a Nun (Chatto & Windus, 2024) was shortlisted for the TLS Ackerley Prize, among other awards. She has appeared as a guest on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live, on Free Thinking, and on Radio 3’s The Verb, and has written and presented for The Essay. Off air, she is a writer and reviewer for publications from the Tablet to the TLS. She lives in Oxford, plays the viola, and is represented by Patrick Walsh at PEW Literary. |
 Walter Hall is a London-based opera & theatre director. His recent credits include four new operas: Fort; The Rapture; Buster’s Trip (Tête à Tête); and In Five Years’ Time (The Space Theatre). Revival directing credits include The Merry Opera Company’s staged Messiah. Assistant directing credits include Trouble in Tahiti/The Seven Deadly Sins (Opera Prelude); Die Fledermaus, Hänsel und Gretel, and Così fan tutte (The Merry Opera Company); Orphée aux Enfers, Don Giovanni, Der Rosenkavalier, Acis, Galatea & Polifemo, Don Pasquale, and Suor Angelica/Gianni Schicchi (Opéra de Baugé); Opera Scenes (Morley College Opera School). Forthcoming engagements include assistant directing Merry Opera’s tour of The Barber of Seville. |
 Gloria Gamboz is a London based freelance conductor. Prior to relocating to London from Australia in late 2025, she conducted chamber opera, choral, chamber and instrumental music, with a particular focus on 20th Century repertoire. Gloria is also the co-director of a new company Wits’ End Productions, which aims to foster artistic dialogue between art forms including chamber opera, chamber music, theatre and dance. Fête Galante/Façade will be the inaugural London production for Wits’ End Productions. |