Roger Waters interviewed on A&E
Written by Matt   
Sunday, 06 November 2005

Yesterday (November 6th) Roger Waters was interviewed on the A&E TV programme (broadcast in the US and Canada), "Breakfast With The Arts", by Karina Huber.

The fourteen-minute chat with (a fairly tired looking) Waters principally covered his recently released opera, Ca Ira. He started with talk of the genesis of the project, and how he was talked into the English translation, against his initial wishes.

He talked at length about his reprochement with David Gilmour, and relates it to Ca Ira - the capacity within to see the common ground and to understand that people will hold different views of events - and also relates this to wider, current affairs.

There was a particularly amusing passage where he talked of how self-critical he is - the moment when he gave the finished CDs their first listen in his car; not the environment one would expect him to use for the initial play-through!

The subject of performances came up; from an early stage, Roger visualised the piece to aid the creation. He had clear visions of the staging and the stage directions for the narrative and production. He expanded on this, stating that there were discussions and negotiations ongoing with six different companies in the US, for a set of concert performances to hopefully be held next year.

He made it clear that these won't be full productions, with costumes, but concert performances, and promised that it would include all the key elements that those who are in Rome next week will enjoy: "a big orchestra, chorus, projections, sound effects, and crashing and banging!"

Roger chatted with the host as part of a fairly packed programme, which also featured a look at New York's Julliard School (which has close links with the late Michael Kamen), and Bryan Adams, who also featured on Roger's Berlin 1990 Wall concert.

Our special thanks to our Canadian friend Craig Wadman for all his help in bringing this story to you.