The Custard Tart Opera is a meditation on taste. It is based on White Coal by Tom Flemming — a story that takes salt as a base taste and explores the sensation of its experience through the various sensations of sweet, sour, bitter and salty.

The Custard Tart Opera was performed by an eight piece orchestra with flutes representing things salty, a string quartet for sweetness, a base drum and a log drum rendering the sour bits, a trombone portraying bitterness and a soprano taking on the sensation of emotion.

The images are taken from a performance of the opera at the Profile Intermedia 6 conference in December 2003 in Bremen, Germany.

Composer: Dobrinka Tabakova
Story: Tom Flemming
Mezzo Soprano: Katharina Rikus