Opera on 3

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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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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: Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro

Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro

BBC Radio 3 - Opera on 3, Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro

Mozart's peerless comic opera of love, sex and class, from the 2023 Salzburg Festival

Polish bass Krzysztof Baczyk and French soprano Sabine Devieilhe as Figaro and his wife-to-be Susanna, lead a starry international cast in Mozart's enduring comic masterpiece.

A philandering count, determined to exercise his droit de seigneur with his wily valet's bride-to-be on her wedding day.... a humiliated countess bent on revenge... and a sex-obsessed cross-dressed, cross-dressing teenager... 

Subversive and funny, poignant and thought-provoking, Mozart's comedy is one of the greatest operas of all time, packed full of unforgettable tunes, telling characterisation, and trenchant observation both of society's iniquities and the human condition.    

Kate Molleson introduces an acclaimed performance recorded at this year's Salzburg Festival, and she talks to Martin Nedbal from the University of Kansas about Figaro's origins and the ever-changing reactions to the opera in different countries at different times.

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492

Count Almaviva ..... Andrè Schuen (bass) 
Countess Almaviva ..... Adriana González (soprano) 
Susanna ..... Sabine Devieilhe (soprano)
Figaro ..... Krzysztof Bączyk (bass)
Cherubino ..... Lea Desandre (mezzo-soprano)
Marcellina ..... Kristina Hammarström (mezzo-soprano)
Bartolo ..... Péter Kálmán (bass)
Basilio ..... Manuel Günther (tenor)
Don Curzio ..... Andrew Morstein (tenor)
Barbarina ..... Serafina Starke (soprano)
Gardener ..... Rafał Pawnuk (bass)
Vienna State Opera Chorus Concert Association
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Raphaël Pichon (conductor)

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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