Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Opera supremo and general director of the English National Opera, known for transforming the company into one of the country's most successful and innovative op
On the island
Eight records
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth Grümmer, Philharmonia Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan
The prayer of Hansel and Gretel when they're in the forest. It's something that reminds me of every aspect of my life, and will remind me of every incident of my life, because it's a an opera that's accompanied me on all of them.
Prelude from English Suite No. 2 in A minor, BWV 807
I love the Bach English Suites, and really what I'd like to take to the Desert Island is a complete collection of them. But I chose number two because the first movement of it, the prelude, is something that I never tire of hearing, and it's something I used to hear my sister play when I was very, very little.
Te Deum from Quattro pezzi sacri
Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus, Carlo Maria Giulini
It's a work of resignation, it's a work of belief, of passion, religion, and a work really that respects death and it's something that I would couldn't miss having on the desert island with me.
It's a rather happy number, Better Not Look Down, and it has kind of message to it, because it's a really optimistic text. He really just advises somebody, when the going gets tough, not to look down and put one's hands firmly on the joystick and carry on.
They brought these songs to the attention of many when they had been ignored for so long. The song that I have chosen is Memories, which is in two halves, happy and sad, and I think you can only have a little bit of the happy one.
Prelude to Die Meistersinger von NürnbergFavourite
René Kollo, Orchestra and Chorus of the Dresden State Opera, Herbert von Karajan
I think when I go into the theatre for a performance of Master Singers, I go in and I sit in my seat. and the overture starts, and I suddenly feel at peace and at home. It's an opera in whose world I can lose myself for five hours completely.
Second movement from Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49
Artur Rubinstein, Jascha Heifetz, Gregor Piatigorsky
I've chosen a record off the Mendelssohn trio, which he made in nineteen fifty, with Arto Rubinstein and Grigor Pertogowski. It's something that I believe I would play again and again and again on a desert island and never tire of.
Beginning of the final movement (Adagio) from Symphony No. 3 in D minor
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Klaus Tennstedt
I worked with him a lot in Chicago, a marvellous man, a man who I felt very related to because he had to overcome a struggle against a very virulent form of cancer and was an example to me before and after my illness. … I am reminded of his courage, his example to everybody in the music profession, a really dedicated musician of integrity, and one with great heart, soul, and real emotional strength.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:15How much has the dream been shattered by the reality?
Not at all. I mean, I still feel as though I've died and gone to heaven. And in that heaven there are extraordinary r rewards. After a great deal of hard graft and a great deal of hard work and some exasperating moments, there are still those rewards when the house lights go down and when an opera starts or a performance starts or one is on tour and a performance starts in front of another public.
Presenter asks
5:56You are of extravagantly mixed descent. Can you describe it?
Yes, my father was German Jewish and he was brought up in Germany in Hamburg uh and only left that country in the mid-thirties. My mother is a pretty exotic mixture. Um she was born in Jamaica of Lebanese and Scottish extraction and spent a lot of time well most of our early life there and also in in the South American countries.
Presenter asks
16:49What happened [with your cancer diagnosis]?
I was perfectly healthy at the time, so I thought, and I was suddenly diagnosed in a routine medical check up as having Hodgkins' disease of a fairly advanced nature. And uh it was a shattering blow, I suppose. I was then sent back to England to the Royal Marsden Hospital here in Sutton and in Fulham Road. And I must say I had treatment there, and I still go back there for check ups, and it's a place which I've grown extremely fond of, if that's a very odd word to use in this context.
The keepsakes
The book
Saint Augustine
a work that incorporates the Platonic [view] of life into Christianity … it really poses a lot of questions … what is really the meaning of our existence here?
The luxury
a kind of fallback for that dreadful moment when I'm burnt to a crisp, I'm starving, the music can play no more, and the end might have to be in sight.
Presenter asks
21:56You are planning to stage only twentieth-century opera. Isn't that tantamount to professional suicide?
No. Um I think it's very important for us to have a respect for our century, all aspects of it. The art of our century is much more widely and fondly acknowledged in the areas of painting and architecture even than it is in music. People are much more nervous of contemporary music than they are of contemporary art.
Presenter asks
29:21What then? Have you developed another ambition since you realized your first one?
I'm very scared of what then. I I feel the year and O came much too early in my life. I feel at forty three, maybe with four years, maybe with five, maybe with three, who knows whether I'll survive. I feel a great sense of worry about what I'll ever do with my life in the future. And uh people say, No, shut up, don't worry, but um one always does. I can't think of another job in opera that I would want. It's the best one.
“I still feel as though I've died and gone to heaven.”
“I'll probably cry a lot. I'm I'm quite a blubber, really.”
“Life is a gift.”
“I'm very scared of what then.”