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

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Opera on 3

Music: Classical: Opera

Programme presenting rare and fascinating operatic performances

Programme presenting rare and fascinating performances and vividly communicating the immediacy of the live experience

Opera on 3: William Bolcom's Dinner at Eight

William Bolcom's Dinner at Eight

BBC Radio 3 - Opera on 3, William Bolcom's Dinner at Eight

Sean Rafferty presents Dinner at Eight by William Bolcom from Wexford Festival Opera.

Sean Rafferty presents Dinner at Eight, William Bolcom's new opera with a libretto by Mark Campbell from the 2018 Wexford Festival Opera.

Sean Rafferty presents "Dinner at Eight" from Ireland's National Opera House at the 2018 Wexford Festival Opera.

It’s Manhattan in the 1930s and society hostess, Millicent Jordan is immersed in the crucial social trivialities of arranging "Dinner at Eight."  William Bolcom’s opera is a tragicomedy based on the 1932 Broadway hit by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber. 

Millicent's planning is deft, skilled, obsessed and oblivious.  While the lives of her family and guests are in crisis (husband, Oliver is suffering from a fatal heart disorder and her daughter’s love life is fast approaching tragedy) all that matters is that cook’s pièce de résistance, a lobster in aspic, has come crashing to the kitchen floor!  

This is a new work that weds American musical comedy and opera with a brilliant, fast-paced score and witty libretto by the Pulitzer-Prize and Grammy Award-winning composer, William Bolcom and the Pulitzer-Prize winning librettist, Mark Campbell.

Dinner at Eight ... Cocktails with Sean Rafferty and his guests William Bolcom and Mark Campbell from 6.30!


Millicent Jordan.....Mary Dunleavy (soprano)
Oliver Jordan......Stephen Powell (baritone)
Paula Jordan.....Gemma Summerfield (soprano)
Carlotta Vance.....Brenda Harris (soprano)
Dan Packard.....Craig Irvin (baritone)
Kitty Packard.....Susannah Biller (soprano)
Lucy Talbot.....Sharon Carty (mezzo-soprano)
Dr Joseph Talbot.....Brett Polegato (baritone)
Larry Renault.....Richard Cox (tenor)
Max Kane.....Ashley Mercer (bass-baritone)
Gustave.....Sheldon Baxter (baritone)
Miss Copland.....Maria Hughes (soprano)
Tina.....Laura Margaret Smith (mezzo-soprano)
Miss Alden.....Claire Egan (soprano)
Eddie.....Ranald McCusker (tenor)
Mr Hatfield.....Henry Grant Kerswell (bass)
Wexford Festival Chorus 
Wexford Festival Orchestra 
David Agler (conductor)

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