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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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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Giuseppe Verdi

Composer of the Week: Giuseppe Verdi: Episode 5: Macbeth, Otello, Falstaff

Giuseppe Verdi

Episode 5

Episode 5: Macbeth, Otello, Falstaff

Macbeth, Otello, Falstaff

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Giuseppe Verdi, Macbeth, Otello, Falstaff

Donald Macleod explores Verdi's Shakespeare operas - Macbeth, Otello and Falstaff.

Donald Macleod concludes his exploration of Verdi's operas with his Shakespearean trio: Macbeth, a ground-breaking early work, and the masterpieces Otello and Falstaff.

For Verdi, Shakespeare was 'the great poet of the human heart' and the greatest of all playwrights, whom he sometimes referred to simply as 'Papa'. Donald Macleod concludes his exploration of Verdi's operas with his Shakespearean trio: a groundbreaking early work, Macbeth; and his final two operatic essays, Otello and Falstaff - acknowledged pinnacles of the genre. All three excerpts show the protagonists losing control in one way or another: Lady Macbeth, in the famous sleepwalking scene, is unable to suppress her murderous guilt; Otello is unable to control his jealously and rage; and Falstaff, tricked into taking cover in a laundry basket, finds himself at the mercy of gravity, as he's unceremoniously tossed out of a window into the River Thames.

Producer: Chris Barstow.

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.

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Music: Classical: Opera

Donald Macleod explores the operas of Verdi

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Composer of the Week

Giuseppe Verdi

Episode 5: Macbeth, Otello, Falstaff

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