Main content

Alexander Polzin

Michael Berkeley's guest is sculptor, painter and set designer Alexander Polzin.

Alexander Polzin is a German sculptor, painter, costume and set designer. He began his career as a stonemason, but is now well known for his collaborations with writers, composers, choreographers and scientists.

He has created sets, often drawing on his work in sculpture, for operas including Verdi’s Falstaff and Rigoletto, and Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, for which he created huge illuminated stalactites, suspended above the stage. For a 2022 production of Mozart’s opera Mitridate in Copenhagen, the centrepiece was an enormous layered ochre-coloured rock formation, with which bodies merged or slid across.

As a painter and sculptor, he’s enjoyed exhibitions in galleries around the world, and has collaborated with the Aldeburgh Festival in Suffolk, in 2016 and 2023. His work also appears in prominent public spaces, including his statue of Giordano Bruno in Potsdamer Platz in Berlin.

Available now

40 minutes

Last on

Sun 2 Jul 2023 12:00

Music Played

  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    Aria variata in A Minor, BWV 989: Aria

    Performer: Tamara Stefanovich.
    • PENTATONE.
  • Robert Schumann

    Andantino, Schumann G Minor Piano Sonata No.2 Op22

    Performer: Mitsuko Uchida.
    • Schumann:G Minor Sonata. Waldszenen, Gesange Der Fruhe.
    • Decca.
    • 11.
  • Richard Wagner

    03_AP_Tristan und Isolde: Act 3 - Prelude; Shepherd's Pipe; "Kurwenal! He!"

    Lyricist: Richard Wagner. Singer: Anton Dermota. Singer: René Kollo. Singer: Dietrich Fischer‐Dieskau. Orchestra: Staatskapelle Dresden. Conductor: Carlos Kleiber.
    • Wagner: Tristan und Isolde.
    • Deutsche Grammophon (DG).
    • 21.
  • György Kurtág

    Hölderlin-Gesänge - For Baritone, Op. 35a, Gestalt Und Geist

    Performer: Heinrich Huber. Performer: David LeClair. Lyricist: Friedrich Hölderlin. Singer: Kurt Widmer.
    • Signs, Games and Messages.
    • ECM Records.
    • 3.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    Sonatina (Cantata no.106 'Actus Tragicus')

    Music Arranger: György Kurtág. Performer: Márta Kurtág. Performer: György Kurtág.
    • Kurtág: Játékok.
    • EMC New Series Records.
    • 13.
  • Konstantia Gourzi

    Anájikon - The Angel In The Blue Garden, Op. 61

    Ensemble: Minguet Quartett.
    • áᾱDz.
    • ECM New Series Reocrds.
    • 8.
  • Miles Davis

    The Pan Piper

    Performer: Miles Davis. Music Arranger: Gil Evans. Ensemble: Studio Orchestra.
    • Sketches of Spain.
    • Columbia.
    • 003.
  • Matthew Locke

    Locke: Canon '4 in 2' on a plain song

    Ensemble: Phantasm.
    • Locke: For Lovers of Consort Music.
    • Linn Records.
    • 23.

Broadcast

  • Sun 2 Jul 2023 12:00

What makes Boogie-woogie piano legend Jools Holland tick?

What makes Boogie-woogie piano legend Jools Holland tick?

For Private Passions, Jools Holland revealed his piano history to Michael Berkeley.

11 things we learned from Harry Enfield’s Private Passions

11 things we learned from Harry Enfield’s Private Passions

Harry doesn't usually give interviews – but he couldn't say no to Michael Berkeley.

Archive Unlocked: Two Decades of Private Passions

Michael Berkeley introduces memorable interviews from Private Passions' archives.

Podcast