Lucia Popp

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

Speaker 30:05

For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty two, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:30

Our castaway this week is a singer, the lyric soprano Lucia Popp.

Presenter0:36

How well could you endure loneliness for a long time?

Lucia Popp0:39

There are some things that could make the loneliness quite bearable.

Presenter0:43

Such as

Lucia Popp0:44

Like bears.

Presenter0:45

Bears

Lucia Popp0:45

Bearable, yeah.

Presenter0:48

Now, apart from being away from your family and friends, what would be the worst thing about it?

Lucia Popp0:55

Oh, worth think about it.

Lucia Popp0:58

I think it would be

Lucia Popp1:00

The lack of work. Yeah. I love to work. I mean, I love my work and uh

Lucia Popp1:05

I would probably miss it. I'm such a kind of a workaholic.

Presenter1:08

What would you be happiest to have got away from?

Lucia Popp1:12

The work probably they don't like.

Presenter1:14

Don't

Presenter1:16

Too much work.

Lucia Popp1:16

Too much work, yeah.

Presenter1:18

Do you collect records? Have you a lot in your home?

Lucia Popp1:21

No, I don't actually. I uh I sometimes I buy record just when I enter the shop and then I go with twenty or thirty records back. But I don't really collect them.

Presenter1:31

What's the first one you've chosen out of this miserable allowance of eight for your island?

Lucia Popp1:37

Well, you didn't give me too much opportunity, I think, of the cruel eight records.

Lucia Popp1:43

And I think uh Bible is already there.

Presenter1:46

And the Bible's there and Shakespeare.

Lucia Popp1:47

I'm sure

Lucia Popp1:48

And we have um sort of palm down, because I think Bach is a musical bible.

Lucia Popp1:54

And I choose uh violin concertone in E major, second movement.

Lucia Popp1:59

Played by David Oustrak.

Presenter3:01

The beginning of the second movement of Bach's violin concerto in E major with David Oustrach as soloist.

Presenter3:09

Now, you're from Checkers to Vacuum, Miss Bob.

Lucia Popp3:11

Yes, I'm born and raised in Czechoslovakia.

Presenter3:14

But you're not entirely Czechoslovakian.

Lucia Popp3:17

No. You see, Czechoslovakian is always a mixture. I have, for instance, um by myself have four different grandparents. Somebody once told me that everybody has four different grandparents. But I m mean it as a nationality. From mother's side uh has been uh Austrian lady and m uh Moravian gentleman.

Speaker 43:28

But I

Presenter3:29

I'm

Presenter3:30

The nationality.

Speaker 43:31

Yeah.

Presenter3:38

Now where is Moravia?

Lucia Popp3:39

Moravia is the middle section of Czechoslovakia which is not included in the name, actually it should be Czecho Moravian Slovakia.

Lucia Popp3:48

And the the farther side was uh Romanian and Hungarian. We are all mixture.

Presenter3:54

And what part of the country do you come from?

Lucia Popp3:56

I am born in Slovakia, actually I am Slovak.

Presenter3:59

Now your father, an engineer, I believe?

Lucia Popp4:02

Yeah.

Presenter4:02

A musical family?

Lucia Popp4:04

My mother uh sang very nice and she was also for her hobby a little, little work in radio. She had a beautiful voice, I always say she's much, much nicer than I. I used to sing with her duets and uh so I was forced to learn all those men parts. I I'm studied Lincoln and studied Cavaradossi and all those things because she was the soprano.

Presenter4:28

Were you a tenor or a tenor? Yes, I was tenor.

Lucia Popp4:29

Yes, I was tenor. Oh, Byton, is you what do you need?

Presenter4:34

Yeah. Did you have piano lessons as a little girl?

Lucia Popp4:36

Yes, I started piano when I was six years old, and I kept it quite long.

Lucia Popp4:41

for ten years uh and I try to play even now when I I'm studying uh myself and I play for m myself a little bit. Also chambi music.

Presenter4:51

I was a

Presenter4:53

As a schoolgirl you sang in a choir.

Lucia Popp4:55

Yes, I always loved to sing and that was one possibility. And it was a very good choir because we we travel a lot.

Presenter5:01

Where?

Lucia Popp5:02

We travel with our folk songs and folk dances to Scandinavia and to South America, and it was quite uh exciting for a young girl at age fifteen.

Presenter5:14

What was your ambition as a schoolgirl? What did you want to be?

Lucia Popp5:18

Well, I I had my dreams. I wanted to be actress.

Lucia Popp5:22

And uh when you were seventeen and pretty blonde, they engaged me to do some movies.

Presenter5:27

Movie professor

Lucia Popp5:28

Movies, professional movies, I did a lot of them. And then I thought that I have to be actress, but that I changed my mind and then I wanted to save the whole world and wanted to study medicine.

Presenter5:29

But it's learning.

Speaker 45:38

Yes.

Lucia Popp5:38

I went to the university after my high school examine and uh studied for one year. And it seemed to me too difficult. And I discovered my

Lucia Popp5:50

old love music, and I thought, Well, this will be probably the right way.

Presenter5:54

So you went to the Academy. This was Wordon in Bratislava.

Lucia Popp5:57

In Bratislava, I said I just changed the Academy of Drama to the Academy for Music.

Presenter5:58

I

Lucia Popp6:02

Uh And I I had a previous music uh education.

Presenter6:05

You had done some drama between medicine and music.

Lucia Popp6:08

Yeah.

Presenter6:08

Yeah.

Presenter6:09

Yes, you were certainly moving around that university. What was your second subject in the Academy of Music?

Lucia Popp6:17

It was um piano.

Presenter6:19

Yeah.

Lucia Popp6:19

I played uh long and uh with great enthusiasm, but probably not very good.

Presenter6:25

As a student, did you do odd jobs for pocket money? Did you do things in cafes? Yes, yes.

Lucia Popp6:29

Yes, yes. I sang a lot of uh with the sort of salad theatre. We had mu little musicals and all shows. I sang a lot of jazz.

Presenter6:38

Mm-hmm.

Lucia Popp6:38

Just for pocket money and for more or less joy of of a thing.

Presenter6:43

Do you still enjoy jazz?

Lucia Popp6:44

Very much.

Lucia Popp6:45

Funny enough, I didn't choose anyone, but

Presenter6:48

Well

Lucia Popp6:48

Okay.

Presenter6:49

Want to change your mind? No, no, no.

Lucia Popp6:50

No, no, no.

Presenter6:51

What's the second record you've chosen?

Lucia Popp6:54

Well, I talked about piano and I loved piano playing and I always tried to do all sorts of chamber music, but I could never really bring it as far as this wonderful second record. I have Schubert's trio, the opening.

Speaker 47:19

Uh

Presenter8:08

The opening of Schubert's trio in E flat major with Sirkin and Bush and Bush.

Presenter8:15

Now, at the Academy of Music you studied languages, obviously, uh as a singer, but where did you learn your excellent English?

Lucia Popp8:23

Well, it's really hardly to call it excellence. Thank you for compliments. Somebody told me my English will be excellent if people don't ask me where do I learn it.

Lucia Popp8:39

Where did I learn this?

Presenter8:40

I'll change the question and ask you how many languages you speak.

Lucia Popp8:43

Well, not one really good because I uh f start to forget my own language. My mother is just visiting me from Czechoslovak and she's complaining all the time that I don't speak any Czech and Slovak anymore.

Presenter8:55

Well, that's too late, which is for.

Lucia Popp8:57

Uh Czech and Slovak were my sort of mother tongue. And uh Russian was my father tongue. Well, I can't say that. And German, which I learned from my grandmother. And then in the school I learned a little French.

Presenter8:59

Hmm.

Lucia Popp9:13

And in Academy I learned Italian.

Lucia Popp9:18

And now I have a very nice way to learn English.

Lucia Popp9:22

From her husband.

Presenter9:24

Well, that's seven or eight. I didn't keep careful count, but I'm very impressed.

Presenter9:29

Now your debut as a singer after you left the Academy. What was it and where?

Lucia Popp9:34

My debut, my very, very first debut was actually in Bratislava, which was not very observed by anybody. It was just before I left for Vienna to do my audition for Vienna State Opera. But I mean, to be fair, I have to say that my debut was in Bratislava. But the real international debut was in in Vienna.

Presenter9:52

Right.

Lucia Popp9:55

for it was the part of Queen of the Night.

Lucia Popp9:58

Which was the same as my debut in Vienna later.

Presenter10:01

Well, that is a a very, very difficult part. I mean, those two arias of the Queen of Night are are incredibly difficult.

Lucia Popp10:08

Well, you see, the Queen of the Night is a kind of it's not a part, it's a a kind of state. You are in in certain state of naivety or um youth and everything together. I didn't really regard it as very difficult at that time. Today I'm a little frightened. Uh

Presenter10:25

Post.

Presenter10:27

Yeah.

Lucia Popp10:27

Just frighten.

Presenter10:28

So having done just one job in Bratislava, you decided that you must go to Vienna and

Lucia Popp10:33

I wanted to try the world out.

Presenter10:35

Yes.

Lucia Popp10:36

And I came to Vienna just visiting my relatives and my aunt, she was a very great operatic fan, and uh she said, Well, they always need your kind of voice. Why don't you go and just sing?

Lucia Popp10:49

And you know there is um

Lucia Popp10:51

possibility in Vienna. Everybody can go and do an audition. It's a law that everybody from the street could go and uh and see sometimes the performances look like.

Presenter11:03

And then you go up by stages, I should say.

Lucia Popp11:05

Yes, of course you don't sing to Carrion immediately. You sing to I don't probably to the porter. I don't know who is the first.

Presenter11:08

To the

Presenter11:11

It's the first. How many auditions before you got to the bottom?

Lucia Popp11:14

I had three by the third I was already so ill and and sick of of anxiety because they really did take me and I didn't know what to do. And uh I had to go back to Bratislava and I didn't really know how to decide. And then they offered me the Engagement and I had to actually before I finished the school completely I was engaged in Vienna opera.

Presenter11:36

Correct.

Lucia Popp11:37

I started to build my house from the roof.

Presenter11:39

And the same year I believe you sang in Salzburg.

Lucia Popp11:42

Yes, but it was not Queen of the Night. I sank her first boy.

Lucia Popp11:46

And this first point in the magic fluid was heard by Walter Legg.

Speaker 411:50

Mm-hmm.

Lucia Popp11:50

And he engaged me for my very first recording.

Lucia Popp11:54

with Prosecla, the Queen of the Night. And I remember before I I went to the there was King's Way, they still use the same King's Way with yeah, with the underground noise and the aeroplane as we mentioned.

Speaker 411:56

Yeah.

Presenter12:02

The king's play would

Lucia Popp12:07

I went to the dentist because I had some trouble with little with my gam, just a little trouble. I had no idea how difficult it is to to record, you know. And he gave me anesthesia and I I went on the

Presenter12:18

Anesthetic

Lucia Popp12:18

Yeah, anaesthetic, and I went after that to the recording session and I was still feeling like sort of with big mouth swollen and I didn't know how to sing. I mean thinking of it how one's preserved these days when we have a recording. You you lie down in the afternoon and you don't eat and you don't drink anything and that time I didn't care. I g I went on the tube and with

Lucia Popp12:42

With sort of swollen mouth, I sank the cat.

Presenter12:43

Uh

Presenter12:44

And it still sounded all right.

Lucia Popp12:48

But uh many years ago.

Presenter12:50

Let's have your third record.

Lucia Popp12:54

My third record is a little of childhood memories of a fairy tale and a little reminiscence of Cara Anne, who was engaging me that time in the Vienna Opera. We are playing Humpeding Hensel and Gretel.

Speaker 413:10

Mm-hmm.

Lucia Popp13:11

The opening scene in the forest.

Speaker 413:19

Be human.

Speaker 413:25

Field.

Speaker 413:40

I

Speaker 413:44

Light of my eyes through

Presenter14:12

Elizabeth Schwartzkopf and Elizabeth Grime in a short scene from Humber Dick's Hansel and Gretel.

Presenter14:19

Write your first or your second engagement on any stage.

Presenter14:24

with the Vienna State Opera, and you're still a member of that company.

Lucia Popp14:28

Yes, I am a very faithful person, you see.

Presenter14:31

And you've just been made a Kama Sengrin.

Lucia Popp14:35

Yes, yeah. It's just a rem you know, we call it Folter Kammer Singer, which means Tortochambersinger.

Lucia Popp14:45

And they say also either you are Zengerin or Kama Zengerin, you can't be both. But I hope I prove wrong.

Presenter14:50

Hmm.

Presenter14:51

It's very great.

Lucia Popp14:54

It's a very great honor and mostly you get it only later in your career. And I was actually the youngest person who ever received this title. I was very proud of the special of the youngest.

Presenter15:05

You are also a member of the Bavarian State Opera.

Lucia Popp15:08

Yes, I wouldn't say member of Bavarian State Opera because I have a very big contract, very, very uh large contract in Bavarian uh State Opera, but I am not

Lucia Popp15:17

A kind of um stable g um permanent person there. I'm just a as a guest in Munich.

Presenter15:20

Permanently.

Presenter15:23

Meaning but a regular guest.

Lucia Popp15:25

Regular, guys. Very regular, yeah.

Presenter15:27

When did you first sing at the Metropolitan New York?

Lucia Popp15:29

That came actually uh three years after my debut in Vienna.

Lucia Popp15:33

It was like a chain reaction. You see, the the recording of Magic Flute, which I done with Klempera, heard uh Bing, who was uh that time director of the Metropolitan Opera, and he engaged me for the opening season sixty-seven. It was wonderful production with uh Chagall's designs. That I could use my Russian, you know. He was r very grateful to speak uh to uh anybody Russian. What was the opera?

Presenter15:54

On the

Presenter16:00

What was the opera?

Lucia Popp16:01

Magic flu, because it was like a kind of destiny for me, this opera.

Presenter16:01

Yeah.

Presenter16:06

And La Scala?

Lucia Popp16:08

La Scala came later, after I did in Munich wonderful production of Rosen Cavalier, which was conducted by Carlos Kleiber and directed by Otto Schenk. And this production made such a effect on the international opera scenes that they Scala wanted to bring the whole production from Munich to Scala. But they didn't succeed with the with the sets, but they brought the whole whole cast. And so in seventy six I m I made my debut on the Scala with Sophie.

Lucia Popp16:42

Uh cross family.

Presenter16:42

In how many productions have you sang, Sophie?

Lucia Popp16:46

Oh, gosh. I think eleven new productions, yeah.

Presenter16:49

Is that the opera of which you've sung more performances than any other?

Lucia Popp16:54

I think this is the opera I sung probably far the most, but uh I I just decided not to do it any more and I gave up the part with a little pain in heart.

Presenter17:09

Recently you went you sang in Japan.

Presenter17:12

Are they very knowledgeable about opera in Japan? What did you say?

Lucia Popp17:16

They're extremely knowledgeable and fantastic. We sung with Vienna Opera Figaro, Marriage of Figaro, conducted by Professor Bohm.

Lucia Popp17:24

And I remember the strange look, you know, oldest people have black hair and you see the thousands and thousands of black

Speaker 417:35

Top

Lucia Popp17:35

Straight hair and then

Speaker 317:35

Yeah.

Lucia Popp17:37

This enormous silence there was no coughing, no moving, nothing, absolutely must be something with this Oriental concentration so somehow they daily are they are able to concentrate probably much more than we are.

Presenter17:51

Until the end, and then they let me

Lucia Popp17:52

Kudian and Dan, it's really absolutely wild.

Presenter17:56

We've got to record four. What's that?

Lucia Popp17:59

Well, I am so much on my way somewhere in the strange countries, even yeah, Japan or America or whatever, and sometimes I'm I'm homesick, and I found one's little song by Elgar, which uh somehow brings the feeling that one has on lonely days, very good, and calls pleading.

Speaker 418:35

I hear of dream.

Speaker 418:42

Holy gods.

Speaker 418:47

And speak to me again.

Speaker 418:54

Tell me all the stories that I have forgetting.

Speaker 419:04

Wicken my hope and record

Speaker 419:11

Spots.

Presenter19:17

Elgar's song Pleading, sung by Meredith Thomas.

Presenter19:22

Miss Pott, when did you first come to London to sing at Govan Garden?

Lucia Popp19:26

Oh gosh, it was a very, very long time ago. I shouldn't really tell you that. But it was sixty six. I came to sang in the in the revival of Balo in Mascara and I sang Oscar.

Presenter19:40

And then you sang Despina very well.

Lucia Popp19:41

Since that and the really biggest sort of very observed debut, what I would say the the real debut was sixty nine when I sang in the production of John Copley, Cosy did a spina conducted by Sir Josh Shorty. And since then, actually I was almost every year in some

Presenter19:54

Yeah, connecting.

Lucia Popp20:01

Expected or unexpected way in the cotton garden.

Presenter20:04

Well, unexpected last year, because you took over Susannah in the marriage of Figura very short notice indeed.

Lucia Popp20:11

Short? I think I think two hours or something like that.

Presenter20:14

Something like that.

Lucia Popp20:17

To be fair, I was in Munich in the middle of some uh recording. I think I recorded my solo recital record, Arias, and I got a call from Covent Garden. They have been in desperate trouble. Somebody fell ill, you know, it's always something happened in the shows, and they called me to take over four performances of Meritur Figuero, which I could do with two days' notice. And the problem was that I just after each performance I had to go back to Munich to continue my recording.

Lucia Popp20:50

And after the recording go back to sing Susanna, which was quite hard work.

Presenter20:53

So

Presenter20:55

And of course you'd never seen this production, you didn't know which direction to move in or

Lucia Popp21:00

No, you know, you just need to know where the door is in c in case you want to escape. But uh in Figaro it could be very tricky, you know, once I sunk somewhere and I mixed up the door and uh the count was sort of fighting with his s uh so the the the the wrong door and I came from the completely wrong door. It was very funny, it was actually even more complicated than the real Figaro is.

Presenter21:26

And of course in the ensembles it must be very difficult to know where to stand.

Lucia Popp21:29

No, you kick your way around move the people around.

Presenter21:31

So I'm gonna move the people around.

Presenter21:34

You've just sung Eva in Demise to sing at Covent Garden for the first time. That that's a rather heavier role for you than usual.

Lucia Popp21:42

It was a kind of side step, I would say. I didn't really know how it will work out, but I was asked to sing Eva many times, even a few years ago, and I decided not to do it.

Lucia Popp21:54

Of course I didn't feel the time is right. But now I think it worked quite well, and the papers say it and also the real people.

Lucia Popp22:03

Not only the reviews.

Lucia Popp22:05

That is was quite good. It's quite new world for me.

Presenter22:09

Are you a quick study, as we say in English? Can you learn a role quickly?

Lucia Popp22:14

Yes, I can. I can read very good, which is misguiding for me when I put the m music away then I think I know it, but then I discovered I don't. I mean, I have to learn it by heart a little bit. The best method is to write it down. The words, the words, words is also the most difficult thing.

Presenter22:31

And apart from occasions when you're singing Susannah at a few hours' notice, what's your discipline before a performance? Do do you eat or starve yourself? Do you move around? Do you rest? Do you go for walk?

Lucia Popp22:42

It depends on the part. I mean, there are parts very difficult. I mean, have great demands on your physical way. The f most important thing is to have good sleep the night before, because once you don't have a good night's sleep that you can't save anything during the day.

Lucia Popp22:59

And I don't really think that it's necessary to sleep before the performance. It's good for concentration, for your head, uh, to sort of bring your your thoughts together, your brain, but not for the voice. Actually, I have colleagues they wouldn't dare to sleep before performance, to to lose the voice, sort of go going completely deep. I don't have any special preferences for to meals and drinks, um concert, no, nothing.

Presenter23:29

It's time we had some more music was Your Fifth Record.

Lucia Popp23:33

We have now madrigals. As I mentioned, I was singing in choirs, and I was also singing in the madrigal choirs. And I think the madrigal singing is sort of

Lucia Popp23:43

Pure music and pure singing without any not too much feeling. The feeling is in the harmonies and one doesn't use too much tremolo in the voice. And I found a wonderful, wonderful example in Darland's books of songs. And we have now one sample for that pure music.

Presenter24:02

What's it called?

Lucia Popp24:03

Don't think that I am so egoistic, but it calls me me and none but me.

Speaker 424:08

We need that none of me, not who you join.

Speaker 424:19

And quickly for I draw to the lowest His partner bread.

Speaker 424:39

Let's see how God

Speaker 424:47

I fear.

Speaker 424:52

But they are to die.

Speaker 425:00

Who are my love and eyes in front?

Presenter25:08

From Darlin's third book of songs written in sixteen hundred and three, written or published.

Presenter25:14

The Consort of Music, directed by Anthony Rooley.

Presenter25:17

Me, me, and none but me.

Presenter25:20

You devote a lot of time to recitals, don't you?

Lucia Popp25:23

Yes, I think it's very important for kind of voice hygiene, I would say. You see that sort of clean brush up these bad habits which one can get in the opera and the big scene.

Lucia Popp25:38

And I think it's very important.

Presenter25:40

Do you sometimes sing some Slav songs that your grandfather taught you?

Lucia Popp25:44

Yes, I do. He was wonderful. He had such a fantastic memory. I w I wish I could remember all of them.

Presenter25:50

Recordings play a very important part in your career. Where do you do most of them?

Lucia Popp25:55

Well, probably mostly in Germany.

Lucia Popp25:57

But there are some very important recordings coming up also in England. What's that?

Presenter26:02

What's that?

Lucia Popp26:03

In the end of this month I will do the recording of four last songs by Richard Strauss, conducted by Klaus Ternstedt, and then immediately after, in his Mahler cycle, The Mahler Four,

Lucia Popp26:18

And then I do some new opera recording.

Presenter26:22

Yes.

Presenter26:24

Move to

Lucia Popp26:24

Which is also in Germany, not here.

Presenter26:27

Your list of recorded operas is a very impressive, very long list.

Lucia Popp26:30

I wish I would have it. Do you have it? I don't really. I wish somebody would make me my discography. I really don't. I I'm losing a little bit the

Presenter26:32

It is really good.

Lucia Popp26:40

Overlook.

Presenter26:41

I haven't got it with me. I was looking at it this morning. Where is your home, still in Bratislava?

Lucia Popp26:45

No, I am living in Munich.

Lucia Popp26:48

And uh I'm an Austrian citizen and last year I spent thirty-three days at home.

Presenter26:55

Oh no, is that all?

Lucia Popp26:56

Then they understand my bleeding.

Presenter26:58

Ha ha.

Presenter26:59

Record number six.

Lucia Popp27:01

Record number six is Mozart, which was very difficult to choose. I would like to take everything written by Mozart with me. And I chose Clarinet Quintet, played by Betty Goodman,'cause I think what he does with with Clarinet I would love to do sometimes with my voice.

Presenter28:22

The beginning of Mozart Clarinet Quintet in A major with Benny Goodman. Let's go straight into your next record, number seven.

Lucia Popp28:31

Next record is Symphony Number Two by Brahms conducted by Professor Klempera.

Presenter28:37

Why?

Lucia Popp28:40

That's very difficult to say. I wanted to have one big good noise with the whole orchestra when I'm so alone.

Lucia Popp28:48

And I found that tempo clamparachius is so much my tempo. I c I think I couldn't conduct it in the same way if I could be a cl conductor.

Presenter29:57

The opening of the Second Brahm Symphony, Otto Klempere conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Presenter30:03

How well could you look after yourself on a desert island? Are you a practical lady?

Lucia Popp30:07

Yes, I think I I can say that I could probably survive.

Presenter30:10

Quite good.

Lucia Popp30:10

Yeah.

Presenter30:11

Were you ever a girl guide or anything of that sort?

Lucia Popp30:14

I had a wonderful grandmother, and my education or my upbringing was very independent, and I I can do everything. I if if I would not have work to sing, then I can go and clean or wash the windows.

Presenter30:28

Yes. And you could put up a shelter of some sort.

Lucia Popp30:28

I don't like

Lucia Popp30:30

Yes, I think so.

Presenter30:31

Are you sure?

Lucia Popp30:31

I w I was not gir girl guy, but I think I could survive in a

Presenter30:35

Are you a good cook?

Lucia Popp30:36

Well, I I really don't like to talk so nicely about me, but I think I'm excellent cook.

Presenter30:41

Sure.

Presenter30:43

Can you cultivate?

Lucia Popp30:45

If I have green fingers also

Presenter30:47

Yes.

Lucia Popp30:48

Well, I have a little garden, and my plants on the balcony are quite happy. I talk to them, you know.

Presenter30:53

Yes, yes, that's good.

Lucia Popp30:54

Yeah.

Presenter30:55

That works, I think.

Lucia Popp30:57

Well

Presenter30:58

And would you try to escape?

Lucia Popp31:00

Yeah, probably I would try because for a long time it's uh rather boring to be alone.

Presenter31:03

The rat

Presenter31:05

Hmm.

Lucia Popp31:06

I would probably try.

Presenter31:07

It's probably rather boring to be in a very small, not very seaworthy boat, but you would have a go.

Lucia Popp31:13

I think I try. I will try. I am sort of a fighter.

Presenter31:14

Yeah.

Presenter31:16

Right. Good. Splendid. Last record.

Lucia Popp31:20

And for a good mood, I have uh something for teddy bear lovers.

Presenter31:26

I'm a teddy bear still got my teddy bear at her.

Lucia Popp31:31

It's called Steady Bears Picnic.

Lucia Popp31:33

And it's far as I can remember was a tune which I loved.

Presenter31:37

Where did you come across it?

Lucia Popp31:39

Well, I think first it was sung by my English teacher to me, sort of English g uh, not teacher, but governess, or would we have children?

Presenter31:47

Badra

Lucia Popp31:49

and uh zooming a little bit and then probably she had it from radio, from from BBC.

Speaker 431:58

Uh

Speaker 431:59

If you go down in the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise. If you go down in the woods today, you better go in disguise. For every bear that ever there was will gather there for certain because today's the day the teddy bears have their pick.

Presenter32:26

Well, isn't that nice to hear that tune again? Teddy Bear's Picnic by Henry Hall and the BBC Dance Orchestra. If you could take only one disc.

Presenter32:34

Which would it be?

Lucia Popp32:35

It will be teddy bears fixed.

Presenter32:36

Teddy Bears picnic. I hoped it would be.

Lucia Popp32:37

Go back.

Lucia Popp32:38

Uh

Presenter32:39

And one luxury to take with you to the island, one thing purely for pleasure.

Lucia Popp32:44

You will love it will be my teddy bear.

Presenter32:46

And I could have picnic with.

Lucia Popp32:46

And I could have picnic with.

Presenter32:49

Right. And one book, apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, this is going to be a book about Teddy Bears, isn't it?

Lucia Popp32:55

No, no, no, no, this time not, because th it will be at me too much to debase. It will be Thomas Mann, Magic Mountain.

Presenter33:03

Thomas Mann, Magic Mountain. And thank you, Lucia Pop, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Lucia Popp33:10

Thank you, Mr.

Presenter33:11

Goodbye, Venezuela.

Lucia Popp33:11

Lovely to talk to you.

Speaker 333:20

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.