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Last broadcast on Sat, 24 Jan 2009, 12:15 on BBC Radio 3.
Synopsis
Tom Service compares two modern dystopian visions of the world in London opera houses. He also speaks to Canadian singer Gerald Finley and surveys a cycle of Bach church cantatas.
Die Tote Stadt & Doctor Atomic
Tom Service explores two operas haunted by images of death, both of which are about to receive their UK premieres in London – Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt at the Royal Opera House, and John Adams’ Doctor Atomic at English National Opera. In Korngold’s opera grief, murder and the fear of the doppelganger feature in the ‘dead city’ of Bruges, as Paul tries to escape the memory of his dead wife, Marie. In Doctor Atomic, Robert Oppenheimer and his scientists create the first atomic bomb, and a potential nuclear apocalypse. Tom talks to Ingo Metzmacher, who conducts Die Tote Stadt, and Penny Woolcock, the director of Doctor Atomic, and author and Korngold expert Jessica Duchen explains how the two works are connected.
Die Tote Stadt will be broadcast on Radio 3 on Saturday 23 May.
Die Tote Stadt opens at the Royal Opera House on Tuesday 27 February
Gerald Finley
Canadian baritone Gerald Finley sings in both operas – playing Frank/Fritz in Die Tote Stadt, and scientist Robert Oppenheimer in Dr Atomic, a role he created four years ago in San Francisco and which he has sung around the world since. Having started a career in biochemistry before he turned to singing, Doctor Atomic is a piece which engages both of Finley’s passions. He is also a keen advocate of new music – his performances in works by John Adams, Mark Anthony Turnage, Kaija Saariaho and Tobias Picker have been as essential to his career as Mozart. Tom caught up with him during rehearsals at Covent Garden.
Doctor Atomic opens at English National Opera on 25 February
Bach’s Church Cantatas
The Royal Academy of Music in London is about to embark on an ambitious project to perform Bach’s complete sacred cantatas – over 200 of them – within the next decade, with concerts of two cantatas one Sunday a month. Tom talks to some of the first performers in this epic journey – soprano Jessica Dean, mezzo Natalia Brzezinska, tenor Thomas Hobbs, and harpsichordist Christopher Bucknall. He is also joined by Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, principal of the Royal Academy, and Berta Joncus, lecturer in music at Oxford University, to discuss the significance of performing these sacred works in a secular setting.
The Royal Academy’s Bach Cantata Series begins on Sunday 25 January
Music of Central Asia
The Aga Khan Music Initiative for Central Asia is a project sponsored by the Aga Khan Foundation which promotes the folk traditions of the region, restoring traditional music to its rightful place at the heart of its peoples. Michael Church has visited the project for Music Matters, and in the company of musicians and ethnomusicologists discovered how, despite the terrible effects of war in recent years, the music and instruments of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan continue to play an important part in people’s lives.
Broadcast
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Sat 24 Jan 200912:15
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