ѿý

Use ѿý.com or the new ѿý App to listen to ѿý podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Episode details

Radio 4,22 Feb 1998,40 mins

David Pountney

Desert Island Discs

Available for over a year

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the opera producer David Pountney. Alongside Mark Elder and Peter Jonas at the ENO, he tried to make opera more attractive to a wider audience. The opera stage, he says, shouldn't be treated like a mantle shelf filled with fragile objects. It's a versatile and robust art form which needn't be stuck in the past. So he staged Carmen in an automobile graveyard, with a pink Cadillac and a giant billboard, while his Hansel and Gretel was set in a 1950s housing project. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: String Quartet No 2 'Intimate Letters' by Leos Janáček Book: Anthology: The English Year by Geoffrey Grigson Luxury: Croquet lawn

Programme Website
More episodes

Tracklist

  1. Track
    Artist
  2. 1.
    Ophelia's Ditty (from Hamlet)
    Ophelia's Ditty (from Hamlet)
    Dmitry Shostakovich
  3. 2.
    O nata lux de lumine
    O nata lux de lumine
    Thomas Tallis
  4. 3.
    Izithembiso Zenkosi
    Izithembiso Zenkosi
    Ladysmith Black Mambazo