Everyman Opera sings the principal arias and Final Trio of What Is Yours, a new chamber opera, free at Summertown Arts on 29 October. No booking needed.

A new English-language chamber opera gets its first hearing in Summertown later this month. Everyman Opera will perform live excerpts from What Is Yours at Summertown Arts on Banbury Road on Thursday 29 October, and it costs nothing to go.

Doors open at 6.30pm and the performance starts at 7pm. Admission is free and there is no need to book, according to John Frederick Tatlow, the company’s librettist and artistic director, who wrote to us about it.

What you will hear

Tatlow describes What Is Yours as “a new English-language chamber opera exploring power, family and choice.”

The evening is a presentation rather than a full staging. In his words: “Three professional singers, accompanied by pianist Maya Soltan, will perform the principal arias and Final Trio. The presentation will be followed by a short audience discussion with members of the creative team.”

The company’s banner for the night, on its Facebook event page, bills it as “three voices, piano, live excerpts and conversation”, and carries the faces and names of six people: John Tatlow, Spyros Syrmos, Maya Soltan, Flávio Lauria, Mehreen Shah and Phoebe Edwards.

The details

  • When: Thursday 29 October 2026. Doors 6.30pm, performance 7pm.
  • Where: Summertown Arts, 294A Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 7ED.
  • Cost: free.
  • Booking: none needed, just turn up.
  • More information: the Everyman Opera event page on Facebook.

What it means for you

This is a chance to hear a new opera at an early stage and then talk to the people who made it, in Summertown and for free. The discussion afterwards is the part you will not get at a finished production, so it is worth staying for if you have questions about how a new opera is put together.

For more ideas that week, see our things to do in Oxford listings. If you are coming from elsewhere in the city, check the roadworks and travel page before you set off.

Organising an event in Oxford? Email us at hello@theoxfordpost.co.uk with the date, venue and price and we will consider it for our What’s On diary.