Roger Waters news wrap-up
Written by Matt   
Wednesday, 05 October 2005

Roger Waters was in Rome this week, holding a press conference to officially launch his newly release opera, Ca Ira, and to talk about the concert being held in the Italian city next month.

It coincided with the news that the album went straight in to the the Billboard Traditional Classical Chart at number 1, in its first week in stores.

Around fourteen minutes of Roger talking at the press conference can be seen via the video downloads at the Italian Kataweb site. The site has an interesting collection of eight video clips, with Roger talking in detail about Ca Ira and the Live 8 reunion (in which he says about the chance of another reunion: "Maybe!").

During the press conference, a number of the performers taking part in the semi-staged concert performances on November 17th and 18th at the Santa Cecilia Hall of the Auditorium Parco Della Musica, were revealed.

The concert reunites tenor Paul Groves and soprano Ying Huang with conductor Rick Wentworth, all of whom appear on the recording, and introduces to the work bass-baritone John Relyea, taking the part that Bryn Terfel performs on the recording. As we noted previously, the November 17th concert quickly sold out, leading to the second performance on the 18th in the same venue.

Another video interview can be see at the Reuters news service website. The interview, from 29th September, lasts for almost three minutes, and has been shown on Reuters and Euronews. Accompanying the clip is a short, written interview with Roger, covering familiar ground, but with the additional, new comment: "I've got a couple of works in progress which are rock 'n roll albums and I fully intend to finish those. I would really like to do some more work with the symphony orchestra in the future and more choral work as well because I love the sound of the human voice."

Finally, Roger was recently interviewed on WLUP Radio ("The Loop") in Chicago, USA, which can be downloaded from them. This interview, in MP3 format, is a 9.16MB download, and the interview itself lasts for around 13 minutes.

It sounds totally unedited, like it is not what was aired (you'll know what I mean when you hear the start!). Roger talks at length about Ca Ira, and discusses the potential US performances in 2006, along with the staging and production of the opera. He also mentions the Wall On Broadway, and goes on to the Live 8 reunion. He talks in a very enthusiastic way about the show, and the experience, and displays a real wish to do it again.

Our thanks to everyone who has contributed to this, and kept us posted on the various interviews.