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Last broadcast on Sat, 21 Feb 2009, 12:15 on BBC Radio 3.
Synopsis
Tom Service talks to Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel as he prepares to take on the role of Wagner's Flying Dutchman at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and looks at a new book about how the Paris Opera survived the French Revolution.
And Tom also visits Leeds to find out about some of Yorkshire's lost pianos.
Bryn Terfel
Doyen of the world’s bass-baritones, 43-year old Bryn Terfel made his name with Mozart and Verdi, but it is his success in Wagner roles which has more recently seen him sought after by opera houses around the world.
Terfel is about to sing his first Flying Dutchman at the Royal Opera – a role he sang first at Welsh National Opera three years ago. It’s a sign that all is forgiven at Covent Garden after his controversial withdrawal from the Ring Cycle in 2007.
He joins Tom after rehearsals to talk about the importance of family life in his beloved homeland – and the challenge of balancing this with the demands of operatic success.
The Royal Opera House production of the Flying Dutchman with Bryn Terfel in the title role will be broadcast on Radio 3 on May 30th at 6.00pm
Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman opens at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on Monday 23rd February
Backstage at the Revolution
A symbol of royalist opulence and excess, the Paris Opera was an unlikely survivor of the 18th-century French Revolution. So how was it spared the fate of other royal academies and institutions? A new book by Victoria Johnson, Professor of Organisational Studies at Michigan, aims to shed new light on this using a technique called ‘organisational theory’, drawing too on the opera’s founding in the 17th century and the golden age of Lully.
Tom talks to the author and is also joined to discuss the book by Tim Blanning, Professor of History at Cambridge, and opera historian Sarah Lenton.
Backstage at the Revolution: How the Royal Paris Opera Survived the End of the Old Regime by Victoria Johnson is published by University of Chicago Press (£31.00 hardback).
Yorkshire’s Lost Pianos
What happens to pianos that have passed their sell-by date, once they have been played, loved, and finally neglected? In Songs From A Lost Piano, pianist Matthew Bourne has sought out instruments in various states of ill-repair from across Yorkshire – from a hidden gem in a junk shop to a piano in Halifax with a place in blues history.
Tom meets Bourne in a Leeds warehouse where he demonstrates the possibilities of making a unique music from the gamelan-like mistunings and broken strings. Far from seeing their imperfections as a hindrance, Bourne relishes their individuality.
Matthew Bourne’s Songs from a Lost Piano opens at The Venue in Leeds on Friday 27th February
Broadcast
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Sat 21 Feb 200912:15
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