David McVicar

Desert Island Discs: Archive 2005-2010

BBC

Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 804 Ratings

🗓️ 5 October 2008

⏱️ 35 minutes

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Summary

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the opera director David McVicar. He is hailed as the opera director of his generation and is in such great demand that he's booked up for the next five years. Opera appealed to him when he was still a boy, offering him a means of escape from his lonely and unhappy childhood in Glasgow. He immersed himself in it so much that now, he says, it's pretty well impossible for him to come to an opera fresh, somewhere it will already be in his memory. He says: "I didn't choose to work in opera - opera chose me. But I think opera made the right choice."

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Von Ewiger Liebe by Johannes Brahms Book: Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray Alternative to Bible: Bhagavad Gita Luxury: Well stocked bar & fridge.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Nicola Cochlin. Young people have been making history for years, but we don't often hear about them. My brand new series on BBC Sounds sets out to put this right. In history's youngest heroes, I'll be revealing the fascinating stories of 12 young people who've played a major role in history and who've helped shape our world. Like Audrey Hepburn, Nelson Mandela, Louis Braille and Lady Jane Grey,
0:24.7	history's youngest heroes with me, Nicola Cochlin.
0:27.8	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:30.3	Hello, I'm Krista Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.
0:35.3	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The program was
0:39.0	originally broadcast in 2008. My castaway this week is the director David McVicker.
1:00.5	Growing up, he was, by his own estimation, an awkward wee sod from a Glasgow comprehensive.
1:05.8	He's only 42, but for years has been described as Britain's leading opera director of his generation,
1:11.5	and he's in demand all over the world, so much so that he's booked up until 2013.
1:17.5	Vibrantly theatrical, revelatory inventive.
1:20.5	His work is testament to his passion and belief in the power of performance.
1:25.2	I want to put people in touch with themselves, he says,
1:28.0	to put them in intense, burning, agonising contact with their souls.
1:33.4	David McVicker, do you think our day-to-day lives
1:35.9	militate against us being in touch with our true feelings?
1:39.7	Oh, yes, definitely, I think, the ground of everyday life irons everything out.
1:44.8	And I think wonderful things about the nature of live performance
1:49.2	is that it can dredge things up inside people.
1:53.2	It's certainly why I'm interested, why I work in live performance.
1:56.8	It's the ephemeral nature of live performance in the theatre that excites me,
2:00.7	and it's also the fact that it's a communal action that takes place between human beings.
2:06.4	And I find that very, very exciting.
	...

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