Element of grime: Grimeborn returns to the Arcola Theatre

Opera returns to Dalston. Photograph: Grimeborn

All at sea when it comes to opera? You may not be alone at Dalston’s Arcola Theatre, which is this month hosting Grimeborn, a festival now in its seventh year which aims to try and dispel the somewhat la-di-da reputation that still hangs over this art form.

There are 14 productions, each with a short run, and highlights this year include The Miller’s Wife (14-17 August in Studio Two), a new and melancholy British opera which apparently has echoes of Puccini, and Kettlehead (13-17 August in Studio One), which weaves a dark tale of voodoo and revenge in colonial Africa at the close of the 1800s.

There is also a production of that ever popular opera, Mozart’s The Magic Flute (7-10 August in Studio One), in a new English translation by John Warrack, and Black Sand, a weird-sounding creation about a man who wants to sleep for all eternity.

The festival opened late last month with Opera24’s contemporary production – and no contemporary production would be complete without lots of references to smartphones and Facebook – of Cosi Fan Tutte, Mozart’s masterpiece about loyalty and that game called love.

Grimeborn has been called London’s hippest opera festival. There can’t be an awful lot of competition for that title, and 2013’s lineup does seem a mite tamer than 2012’s, which featured a satire written in the Theresienstadt concentration camp and an opera about sexual violence between men.

The location could also be grimier. Dalston has come up in the world since Grimeborn was first staged in 2007.

While it is certainly posher than Glyndebourne House in East Sussex – that famous site of pilgrimage for high spending opera goers to which this East London festival’s great name is a reference – let’s face it, Dalston increasingly has more in common with Angel, Islington than Angel, Edmonton.

At the rate things are going Grimeborn may one day have to move north to Tottenham to maintain its street cred.

Finally, a small word of warning. The Arcola auditoria get notoriously, stiflingly hot, especially in the summer. These could possibly be the hottest shows in town in terms of temperature, so wear as little as you can get away with without risking arrest.

With tickets for the festival still relatively cheap, costing £15 (or £12 concessions), and with various discounted multi-buy offers available, you could nigh glut yourself on opera this month. You can book online at arcolatheatre.com.