We are pleased to be able to bring you the first review of Roger Waters' long-awaited opera, Ca Ira, having been fully absorbed into the piece over the last three weeks or so. The former Pink Floyd frontman (who recently appeared with them again at the Live 8 concert) has enlisted the mighty vocal talents of Bryn Terfel, Paul Groves and Ying Huang to help tell the story of the French Revolution.

The album itself will be released in just over a month's time. The "lavish first edition digipack" will include the full opera on two hybrid SACDs (playable on normal CD players), with a bonus "Making Of 'Ca Ira'" DVD (of which we will be bringing you more details of shortly), and a 60-page four-colour booklet containing the libretto, cast credits, and original illustrations. It will be in stores on/around Tuesday, September 27th worldwide.

However, we have bad news for our many Australian readers. The standard Ca Ira is being released on October 2nd in Australia, with the deluxe only being available as an expensive import shortly after that. Why the deluxe version is not getting a release down under is a mystery to us!

To read our review of Ca Ira, please visit our reviews section, found in the site's main menu.

The special edition SACD and DVD digipack can be ordered through these special links: Amazon.co.uk (UK/elsewhere), Amazon.com (US/International), Canada, France, or Germany. They also have the normal edition, without the DVD.