Manchester makes Radio 3 Opera

Made in Manchester Productions has won its first-ever commission for BBC Radio 3.

The First English Opera, which is being broadcast as part of the BBC’s Opera Season, will air this Sunday from 9:30pm till 10:15pm.

The programme includes the first attempt in 350 years to re-imagine what the work might have sounded like. The programme is presented by Claire Van Kampen, the former Musical Director of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.

Producer Robert Shore says: “Why is this seminal work, the first opera in English to be performed publicly, now so largely ignored? No doubt it's partly because the music – which the enchanted Pepys desperately tried to obtain for himself in the early 1660s – is lost, but the reasons for its neglect are more complicated than that.

Executive Producer and Creative Director Ashley Byrne: “The First English Opera proves the versatility of Made in Manchester’s programme-making talents. It’s a great story and I’m delighted that MIM has been able to bring it to the fore as part of the BBC’s Opera Season.”