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Amanda Roocroft & Claire Bradshaw on Otello

New Production of Otello at Welsh National Opera. Duration 19 minutes

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Amanda Roocroft (Desdemona) Claire Bradshaw (Emilia) Robin Tritschler (Roderigo) - Photo by: Catherine Ashmore

On a wet Monday afternoon in Cardiff, I had a pleasure to interview Amanda Roocroft and Claire Bradshaw during their lunchbreak. As you'll hear on the podcast, it was a refreshingly girly chat. They are both starring in what promises to be one of the best productions to come out of the Welsh National Opera for many years. To quote Neil Shestopal 'fight for a ticket'.

The good news is that the WNO are touring the production around the country. Here are the details:

Cardiff (Cardiff, Wales Millennium Centre) 24Sep 27Sep 04Oct 11Oct Swansea (Swansea, Grand Theatre) 17Oct Liverpool (Liverpool, Empire Theatre) 24Oct 24Oct Bristol (The Bristol Hippodrome) 04Nov 07Nov Southampton (Southampton, The Mayflower) 11Nov 14Nov Birmingham (Birmingham Hippodrome) 18Nov 21Nov Llandudno (Llandudno, Venue Cymru) 25Nov 28Nov Oxford (Oxford, New Theatre) 02Dec 05Dec

If you want to find out more and book tickets, click here for the relevant page on the Welsh National Opera website. If you're new to the opera, WNO have provided a synopsis here.

Certainly the cast is impressive, with Paul Curran producing and Carlo Rizzi conducting. The title role is sung by Dennis O'Neill and the role of Iago is sung superbly by David Kempster.

There is a great deal about Amanda Roocroft on the web, so I thought I would edit a few of the best examples. Here you can see a video on You Tube of Amanda in Don Carlo with Rolando Villazon performing the final duet and here is another video of Amanda Roocroft singing "Come Scoglio" from Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte" in 1992. There is a very good interview with her from Radio 4's Woman's Hour in May which you can listen to here

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operalover 2008-09-23 19:33:21	Amanda Roocroft and Claire Bradshaw (Report) What a great podcast - insightful and a very natural and really personal interview - cant wait to go and see the Othello now - thank you Susie
operalover 2008-10-01 23:39:15	synopsis (Report) Hi, I recommended the podcast to a friend new to opera, she loved it and found the link to the synopsis really helpful!