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This week a new production of Idomeneo, King of Crete opened at the Royal Opera House in London.聽It鈥檚 directed by Martin Kusej with conductor Marc Minkowski also making his Covent Garden debut. In Mozart鈥檚 early opera the war hero Idomeneo promises the gods he will sacrifice the first person he sees in return for a safe journey home. That person is his son Idamante. Petroc Trelwany is joined by the critics Alexandra Coghlan and David Nice to review the production, set in a totalitarian regime full of references to the 20th century including a sect of Goths and children carrying AK47 rifles.

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In his new book Beethoven 鈥� Anguish and Triumph, Jan Swafford mines sources never before used in English-language biographies to reanimate the revolutionary ferment of Enlightenment-era Bonn, where Beethoven grew up and imbibed the ideas that would shape all of his future work. Petroc talks to Swafford about Beethoven being part of the first generation that wrote for the piano, his decision to concentrate solely on composition in the face of deteriorating health, the late quartets being his most modern music and the Apollonian and Dionysian contrasts in his life.

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The Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire turned 70 earlier this year. He was born in the interior state of Minas Gerais and made his first public appearance at the age of five. His family, impressed by their son鈥檚 precocious talent, moved to Rio de Janeiro so that he could study with leading teachers. In 1957, after winning the Rio de Janeiro International Piano Competition the President of Brazil presented him with a grant which allowed him to study in Vienna. Since then his career has gone from strength to strength being hailed as 鈥淥ne of the most exciting pianists of this or any age鈥� by Time Magazine. Petroc Trelawny meets Freire who talks about his time as a teenager in Vienna, his artistic relationship with fellow pianist Martha Argerich, music in his homeland and why he doesn鈥檛 like recording sessions.

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The British Council and PRS Music Foundation have chosen five UK musicians to spend time in China, writing new music and building new international relationships. The six-week residencies are designed to enable British musicians to explore new musical territory, reach new audiences and write new material in the context of a changing international market. The composer Anna Meredith sends the second of a series of audio postcards from Hangzhou where she is involved in a project to create an audio tour of the city with local musicians. We hear Anna recording elderly ladies dancing in an open space, visiting a Buddhist temple with singing monks and other places that have influenced her composition for this project. We also get a preview of some gong and cymbal loops she has put together in her hotel room.

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