Opera singer Richard Scott explores opera through the prism of various themes – politics, power, greed, the abominable, magic, lust, comedy.
Today: Richard travels to Glyndebourne in The South Downs to talk to the people who really put the operas together.
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Originally broadcast on 11th July 2013
Opera singer Richard Scott explores opera through the prism of various themes – politics, power, greed, the abominable, magic, lust, comedy.
Today he visits the Royal College of Music’s Museum of Instruments to chat to its curator Jenny Nex and sample her various harpsichords; while the counter tenor Randall Scotting sings for us, underneath the portrait of the great operatic castrato Farinelli.
Originally broadcast on 20th June 2013
Opera singer Richard Scott explores opera through the prism of various themes – politics, power, greed, the abominable, magic, lust, comedy.
Today he has a sonic stomp round Epping Forest and watches the sunrise in Victoria Park all to the music of Weber, Wagner, Berg, George Benjamin and Britten.
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Originally broadcast on 6th June 2013
Opera singer Richard Scott explores opera through the prism of various themes – politics, power, greed, the abominable, magic, lust, comedy.
Today: vocal chameleon and international mezzo Lucy Schaufer, who was last seen dressed as Maurice Sendak’s dog Jenny at The Barbican, talks about her debut album “Carpentersville.”
Originally broadcast on 30th May 2013
Opera singer Richard Scott explores opera through the prism of various themes – politics, power, greed, the abominable, magic, lust, comedy.
Today: composer, singer, conductor and artistic director Laura Bowler, who has been busy writing operas about eating disorders and setting Guardian Journalist Tanya Gold’s columns to music.
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Originally broadcast on 16th May 2013
Opera singer Richard Scott explores opera through the prism of various themes – politics, power, greed, the abominable, magic, lust, comedy.
Today: Sir Thomas Allen cancelled at the last minute so instead opera fan and teacher Linda Scott – Richard’s mother – talks about Verdi, Puccini, Gluck and just how difficult and trying it was having a son who wanted to go on the stage.
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Originally broadcast on 9th May 2013.
Opera singer Richard Scott explores opera through the prism of various themes – politics, power, greed, the abominable, magic, lust, comedy.
On today’s show we are off on holiday! The sun has come out so we’re taking an operatic trip around Greece and Cyprus.
We’ll hear from Britten’s magical forests just outside of Athens, from Monteverdi and Birtwistle’s dark and lonely Ionian seas and from Verdi’s jealous-crazed Othello as he stalks his Cypriot palace looking for proof of his wife’s infidelity.
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Originally broadcast on 2nd May 2013.
Opera singer Richard Scott explores opera through the prism of various themes – politics, power, greed, the abominable, magic, lust, comedy.
Today he explores the lost and missing and catalogues the alienated within opera. We’ll hear from Britten’s violent anti-hero Peter Grimes, from Handel’s sopping and naked Cesare as he washes up on the banks of The Nile, from Birtwistle’s unhinged and obsessed Ariadne as she sends another twelve innocent victims to their horrific death within the Minotaur’s labyrinth; and from Berg’s bleak and tragic Wozzeck who’s medical trials bring about supernatural visions and the murder of his wife.
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Originally broadcast on 25th April 2013.
Opera singer Richard Scott explores opera through the prism of various themes – politics, power, greed, the abominable, magic, lust, comedy.
Today he talks about his personal love affair with opera and wonders how listening to opera can actually save your life. Featuring empowering classics from Mozart, Purcell, Bizet and Jimmy Somerville, tracks that had the power to inspire and save the younger Richard when he was a bullied London teenager.
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Originally broadcast on 18th April 2013.
Opera singer Richard Scott explores opera through the prism of various themes – politics, power, greed, the abominable, magic, lust, comedy.
Today he examines opera’s portrayal of the night sky. We’ll hear Handel’s solar eclipse, how John Cage tried to musically trace the universe, prominent British astronomer William Herschel’s oboe concerto, Herschel discovered Uranus and her moons, and from Philip Glass’s opera, Kepler, who witnessed the great comet of 1577.
Originally broadcast on 11th April 2013.
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