meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Woman's Hour

Opera arias reinvented, Holocaust survivor Rachel Levy

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.22.9K Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2022

⏱️ 56 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We’re all too familiar with operatic heroines, dying tragically on stage. The arias they sing are often completely beautiful, the skill of the composers not in doubt, but the stereotyping does modern women no service. It’s a dilemma that award winning, all women string quartet Zaïde address in a new project entitled No(s) Dames. They have teamed up with counter tenor Théophile Alexandre to showcase arias of tragic heroines by seventeen different composers. The twist is that it is male Theophile who sings the arias. First violinist Charlotte Maclet joins Emma. Today is National Holocaust Memorial Day and the Prince of Wales, as chairman of the National Holocaust Memorial Trust has commissioned the portraits of seven Holocaust survivors all of them now in their nineties, whose childhoods were spent surviving the Nazis. The portraits will be displayed at the Queen's Gallery as a living memorial to the six million innocent men, women and children who lost their lives in the Holocaust and whose stories will never be told. A 60-minute BBC Two documentary Survivors: Portraits of the Holocaust will air tonight at 9 pm and has followed the creation of the artworks and the relationship between artists and sitters. Emma is joined by one of the survivors - Rachel Levy - who was painted by the artist Stuart Pearson Wright. Image: Quatuor Zaïde quartet with Théophile Alexandre Credit: Julien Benhamou

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

0:05.3

Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Women's Hour from BBC Radio 4.

0:10.1

It's masks off today in England as the Covid rules change again.

0:13.6

Secondary school students no longer wearing them in classrooms or communal areas, face

0:17.4

coverings not legally required in any other setting, although a lot of establishments will

0:21.9

still encourage and request them.

0:24.8

Studies have found that men are more reluctant than women to wear them.

0:28.8

One survey done towards the beginning of the pandemic said women were almost twice as

0:32.8

likely as men to say they intended to wear a mask outside of their home when the rules

0:37.3

were not mandatory to wear them.

0:39.4

Well that's back where we are.

0:41.0

Is that your experience?

0:42.0

Is that what you've seen?

0:43.0

However anecdotal or whatever you want to say about it I want to hear.

0:46.4

We are back to personal choice certainly in England and shortly we'll help you with

0:50.1

the science side of it.

0:51.8

But what is your feeling today with regards to those particular rule changes in England?

0:55.8

Also I don't know if you saw this but it caused a new study from Cardiff University looking

1:00.0

at women's responses to men in masks.

1:02.7

The Commission by the Psychology Department of the University shows it's changed during

1:06.3

the course of the pandemic.

1:07.7

Apparently researchers found women rated men's faces as more attractive when covered with

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.