Arts & Classical Music Spring/Summer 2002 1 Contents BBC Arts & Classical Music: Spring/Summer 2002 Introduction 3 Publicity contact details 3 Arts & Classical Music on BBC TWO Reading the Decades 4 Dickens 4 Art That Shook the World 4 The Golden Jubilee Concert - Prom at the Palace 5 Omnibus 5 St John Passion 6 The Sixties Exposed 6 Young Musician of the Year 2002- Contenders 7 Young Musician of the Year 2002 - The Final 7 Hollywood Inc 7 Rostropovich at 75 8 Arts & Classical Music on BBC ONE The Royal Collection 9 Hollywood Greats 9 The F.A. Cup Classic 9 Jane Austen 10 BBC Proms 2002 10 Arts & Classical Music on BBC FOUR Painting the Weather 11 Jeanne Moreau Season 11 The Trouble with Michel 12 Mali Music with Damon Albarn and Afel Bocoum 13 The Mystery of Charles Dickens 13 Richter: The Enigma 13 William Lawes 13 Film: Time Regained 14 Film: Kandahar 14 Film: A la Place du Coeur 14 2 Arts & Classical Music on the BBC this Spring/Summer This Spring/Summer Season, the BBC features the best in arts and music programming offering viewers access to the biggest names and topical issues in the arts world. Literature plays a key role this season across BBC One, BBC Two and BBC Four, with a documentary on Jane Austen on BBC One; for BBC Two, a new drama documentary series on Charles Dickens presented by Peter Ackroyd; a four-part series examining literature from the 1950s to the 1980s - Reading the Decades; an examination of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando in Art That Shook the World; an Omnibus on Edna O’Brien; and on BBC Four a documentary on the controversial French author Michel Houellebecq. Visual art comes to the fore in the world’s first virtual art exhibition - Painting the Weather - on BBC Four. This is complemented on BBC Two by a two-part Omnibus on Matisse to coincide with the opening of the Matisse/Picasso exhibition at London’s Tate Modern; an Omnibus on Caravaggio; and on BBC One The Royal Collection, broadcast in celebration of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. The Sixties Exposed examines the photography of the decade and the men behind it. For music-lovers this season, The Proms returns to the BBC across BBC One, Two and Four - including a Golden Jubilee Concert. Other highlights include St. John Passion by English National Opera and Rostropovich at 75 on BBC Two; and Mali Music with Damon Albarn and Afel Bocoum on BBC Four. The F.A. Cup sees stars from the classical and pop music worlds combine in a concert at CRFC Cardiff Arms Park. BBC Four continues with its commitment to world cinema, including a season of Jeanne Moreau films; coupled with a three-part series looking at films from conception to cinema release in Hollywood Inc on BBC Two. 3 BBC TWO Oliver, Little Nell, Pip, Scrooge, Fagin, Mr Micawber, Uriah Heep, David Copperfield, and Miss Haversham, all live on in the minds of readers and READING THE DECADES viewers. Yet, there is much about Dickens’ incredible life which is little known. Resembling the plot of one of his own novels, From Lucky Jim to Adrian Mole, Reading the Dickens’s life is a tale of rags to riches, complete Decades examines British social history through the with bankruptcy, prison, and forced child labour. nation’s best-selling books. Literary classics and His fame and fortune were overshadowed by guilt cookery books, blockbuster airport novels and self- and secrecy. Dickens indeed drew strongly on his help manuals, are the books which have inspired, own life and experiences as the creative source for excited and forced readers to part with cash from the much of his fiction. 1950s to the end of the ‘80s. An innovative mix of documentary and dramatic Focussing on a particular decade each episode, the reconstruction vividly recreates the author’s programmes re-invoke the sentiments of the period, extraordinary life. For Dickens, Anton Lesser plays from fashion and film to politics and propaganda, the novelist; Prunella Scales and Timothy West, his from the desires and aspirations to the fears and parents; Miriam Margolyes is Catherine Dickens, his anxieties of the British people. wife; and Natasha Little takes on the part of Ellen “Nelly” Ternan, the 19 year old actress who Dickens Jilly Cooper, Tom Wolfe, John le Carre, Desmond fell in love with when he was 48. Morris, and David Attenborough are among an impressive cast of interviewees. In addition to the State of the art technology transports viewers to the key authors from the featured decades, the series heart of Victorian London as Peter Ackroyd visits includes contributions from leading contemporary key locations from Dickens’s work and life - as they writers, critics, journalists, actors, politicians, and were in the author’s day. Many of the locales, such book-lovers giving their personal responses. as the real Bleak House in Broadstairs and 48 Doughty Street in central London, are still standing, Reading the Decades surveys the works which but for others, now long gone, technology allows have defined generations, and traces how books Ackroyd to re-discover the streets and buildings have both responded to and affected public and that Dickens so evocatively painted in his works. private preoccupations. The series also examines the emergence of a literary family tree: revealing the Executive producer is Andrea Miller. Jilly Cooper of the 1950s and whether cookery A BBC production for BBC Two. books had iconic figure-heads before Delia Smith and Jamie Oliver. ART THAT SHOOK THE WORLD Executive producer: Mary Sackville-West A BBC production for BBC Two. DICKENS In the worlds of literature, film, music, visual arts and theatre there have been works which have transformed everything in their wake. Works of art that shook the world. The life - and the London - of Charles Dickens is brought vividly to life in an innovative and Blending the compelling stories surrounding the revealing new series presented by acclaimed works, the social and political events of the time Dickens expert, Peter Ackroyd. with the passion they continue to inspire, Art That Shook The World offers a unique insight into the art Charles Dickens is one of the great literary geniuses that continues to shape our culture. of all time. His short stories and novels continue to delight and entrance readers all over the world. He is Best-selling author, Jeanette Winterson explores the the man who brilliantly depicted Victorian London, life and work of a literary giant who literally fought for social reform, almost single-handedly reinvented the novel, exploded conventional invented Christmas and created some of the most biography, and smuggled cross-dressing and memorable characters that fiction has ever known: lesbianism into the sitting rooms of 1920s England. 4 Virginia Woolf's Orlando is often misunderstood as The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, under just an enjoyable romp through English history. Art the baton of their Conductor Laureate Sir Andrew That Shook The World takes the viewer between the Davis, will form the backbone of the classical lines to find out how Virginia's fascination, and concert, Prom at the Palace. The two-hour feast of affair, with aristocrat Vita Sackville-West provided music includes a rare performance by the great the inspiration for a study of women, biography, Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, gender and English culture that was simply decades internationally acclaimed soprano Dame Kiri Te ahead of its time. In dramatic excerpts, Joely Kanawa and top British baritone Sir Thomas Allen Richardson and Saffron Burrows play Virginia and will sing popular works from opera and musical Vita in the spectacular locations of Knole, theatre. Opera’s hottest duo, Roberto Alagna and Charleston and Hever Castle. Eddie Izzard, Peter Angela Gheorghiu, make a special appearance Ackroyd, Nigel Nicolson, Sally Potter and Margaret performing solos and a duet. Reynolds share their thoughts. The repertoire has been specially chosen to reflect Wagner’s Ring Cycle is a revolutionary work of art the century’s strong link between music and the conceived on the grandest of scales. Creating Monarchy. From Handel’s Zadok the Priest, sounds like no one before him, Wagner’s music has through traditional spirituals performed by the been described as so powerfully seductive that it London Adventist Chorale, to great works for full robs its listeners of their critical facilities. For Art orchestra, there will be something for everyone to That Shook The World, politician Michael Portillo enjoy at this historic and unique event. examines the impact and enduring fascination with the work - and its composer. Meeting musicians, Jenny Abramsky, the BBC's Director of Radio and directors and avid Wagnerians, Portillo explores the Music, says, “We are delighted to be working with music, the passion and the politics. Buckingham Palace on these two truly extraordinary events which will make for fantastic memories for The Bhagavad Gita is perhaps the defining text of years to come. Those lucky enough to receive an Hinduism, at least as it is concerned with daily invitation to the Palace will be joined by television living. The jewel at the centre of the Mahabarata, and radio audiences at home and from around the the longest poem ever written, the Bhagavad Gita world to enjoy these two spectacular musical takes place on the morning of a great battle between celebrations.” opposing factions of the ruling family. Girish Karnard, one of India’s leading playwrights, actors A BBC production for BBC Two. and award-winning film-makers, explores the Bhagavad Gita as the most important text for Indians through two millennia.