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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

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Private Passions Podcast

Private Passions

Discussion & Talk

Music: Classical

Guests from all walks of life discuss their musical loves and hates

Guests from all walks of life discuss their musical loves and hates, and talk about the influence music has had on their lives

Private Passions: Thomas Allen

27/06/2010

Thomas Allen

BBC Radio 3 - Private Passions, Thomas Allen

Michael Berkeley's guest is baritone Thomas Allen.

Michael Berkeley's guest is baritone Thomas Allen. His musical choices include opera from Humperdinck, Wagner and Monteverdi, as well as pieces by Schubert and Frank Bridge.

Michael Berkeley's guest today is Sir Thomas Allen, whose trajectory from modest origins in the North East of England to international acclaim as one of the finest operatic baritones of our time in part inspired the story of 'Billy Elliot'. After studying singing at the Royal College of Music he made his professional operatic debut as Rossini's Figaro over 40 years ago, and has gone on to sing many leading roles in a range of works from Mozart to Benjamin Britten at the world's great opera houses and festivals. He is widely admired in the operatic world for his beautiful voice, versatility in repertoire, and supreme acting ability. This season his roles have included Don Alfonso (Cosi fan tutte), Faninal (Der Rosenkavalier), Gianni Schicchi and Beckmesser (Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg).

Thomas Allen's private musical passions, as revealed to Michael Berkeley, encompass three operatic excerpts - the Overture to Humperdinck's 'Hansel and Gretel', which he loves both for its childlike simplicity and Wagnerian overtones; the Prelude to Act III of Wagner's 'Die Meistersinger', and the final scene of Monteverdi's 'The Return of Ulysses' in Jeffrey Tate's recording of the controversial arrangement by Hans Werner Henze, in which Allen himself sings the role of Ulysses. There's also an excerpt from Schubert's great Fantasia in F minor for piano duet, and the 'Moonlight' episode from Frank Bridge's tone-poem 'The Sea', which reminds him of his own origins in a North-Eastern fishing village.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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