Роджер Уотерс / Roger Waters

2sunset:

Спасибо за ссылки, sunset;)!

A new DVD and book detail the rise of Pink Floyd's early and middle years.

by Nate Patrin

Icons, dinosaurs, spacemen, prog- rockers, prop-rockers, hi-fi christeners, bong salesmen, punk rock's nemeses, the Big Story of Live 8: Pink Floyd have been called a lot of things, but for some reason "populist" continues to escape them. Overly elaborate stage shows and album-side-length epic rock suites have been considered pretentious and irrelevant since Joey Ramone's first 1-2-3-4, but ironically the one thing that drove Pink Floyd, even through all their high-tech audiophile multimedia grandiosity, was their need to reconnect with some universal human reality that their original frontman, Syd Barrett, had since abandoned. They reconnected so well with 1973's The Dark Side of the Moon that they sold 30 million copies and counting, made the avowedly socialist Roger Waters a multi-ultra-millionaire, and kept Johnny Rotten from having to wear an "I Hate ELO" shirt.

Yet all of that was unthinkable in 1968. A couple years prior, the Pink Floyd (every rock group had a mandatory "the" back then) were the It band to grok when you were caught up in the transitory phase between swingin' London mod and acid-dropping psychedelia, halfway between The Avengers and 2001. The new DVD Pink Floyd: London 1966/1967 (Navarre Corporation, $20.98) is both an interesting snapshot and a superficial overview of that incarnation. It's more the story of a scene than it is of the band, and the main footage of the Floyd—culled from the classic documentary Tonite Let's All Make Love in London and rife with footage of trippily shot neon lights and midriff-baring go-go girls—feels almost perfunctory. Only two songs are featured, and while it's a thrill to hear both the first draft of "Interstellar Overdrive"—replete with a more prominent, grimier Rick Wright organ hook that could have come from ? and the Mysterians' garage—and the meandering proto- Krautrock of the beat-drone/sound-decay exercise "Nick's Boogie," both songs are instrumentals and lack the pastoral whimsy that Syd brought to the group.

The periphery is of greater interest here. There's footage of the band's April 1967 gig at Alexandra Palace, the place where John Lennon supposedly met Yoko Ono, and the interview extras—while largely irrelevant to Pink Floyd, save a somewhat dry overview by rock video pioneer/director Peter Whitehead —are a hoot, particularly footage of Michael Caine bemoaning miniskirt morals and a dazed-sounding Mick Jagger mumbling vague social philosophy like a man about to decide that it would be a good idea to make Her Satanic Majesty's Request. We also get to see a clip of some guy wearing a small chain-link fence wrapped around his face and a woman taking a drag on a cigarette while a flower dangles from her mouth; they both look pretty nonchalant about the whole thing. Syd Barrett, meanwhile, could no longer look nonchalant about anything. Being a pop star was burden enough, but once a housemate turned him on to acid, his pre-existing schizophrenia became too much to handle, and the band drifted, rudderless, without him for the next several years.

They'd sort that out eventually. John Harris' The Making of the Pink Floyd Masterpiece 'The Dark Side of the Moon' (Da Capo, $24.95) dredges up every possible relevant bit of information on the background and creation of their breakthrough album, and puts as much emphasis on the years leading up to their 1973 blockbuster as it does the actual recording sessions. Harris' matter-of-fact narrative, augmented by the band's often amusingly irascible recollections, reveals a fascinating evolution.

Waters' recurring sense of isolation and detachment—"I haven't even begun to find how to relate myself to the rest of the world, and people, and what to do about them," he's quoted from a 1970 interview—finally pushed the band to embrace down-to-earth themes as a way of grounding their own heads. They had already spent the better part of an international tour working out the album's kinks—often riddled with technical difficulties Waters referred to as "severe mechanical and electronic horror"—and in 1972, they set up a strange encampment in Abbey Road Studios, where yards of unedited sound-effects audio tape were looped round the room's circumference around microphone stands during sessions that were timed to not conflict with episodes of Monty Python.

Harris, also the author of last year's excellent Britpop! Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of English Rock, touches on a range of trivia—David Gilmour's attempts to bring some Stax style into the proceedings with "Money," session singer Clare Torry's skeptical view of her vocals on "The Great Gig in the Sky" (brought in to replace clips of the U.K.'s Pat Robertson analogue, Malcolm Muggeridge), the Paul McCartney spoken-word quips that were left off the album because he "found it necessary to perform" instead of answering the written questions (e.g., "What is on the dark side of the moon?") straight.

But most of all, Harris makes it clear why the album was such a success: It's grandiose music augmented by unpretentious language. Dark Side, like the Lamborghini Countach and the set design for Star Wars, is both exotically high-tech and dated in a way that only a product of the '70s can be. But leave aside the album's stoner-rock rep, from the laser shows it soundtracks to its alleged resonances in tandem with viewing The Wizard of Oz (an urban myth parodied by East Orange, N.J., free-form radio station WFMU host Tom Scharpling, who recently played Dark Side in its entirety with running commentary). Focus instead on its combination of studio wizardry and plainspoken pop lyrics, and you can hear the album for what it is: Pet Sounds for pessimists.

http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0547/051123_music_pinkfloyd.php

By Alan Riding The New York Times

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2005


ROME Aging rockers don't fade away; nor, apparently, do their followers. So two decades after Roger Waters broke with Pink Floyd, as bassist, lead singer and composer, fans flew here from across Europe to hear his latest creation. And it seemed to matter little that he had written a 19th-century-style opera called "Ça Ira" (There Is Hope).

Before the semistaged concert premiere began Thursday in Renzo Piano's new Auditorium Parco Della Musica, Waters was received with whoops and cheers as he welcomed the public in halting Italian. Then, at the intermission and the curtain call, there was more enthusiastic applause for the cast as well as for the composer, at 62 still a striking figure with flowing gray locks.

True, one young British woman wondered, "I don't understand why an opera about the French Revolution is being sung in English in Rome." But she quickly added, "You can hear lots of Pink Floyd in it: the children's choir, the bird sounds."

Well, perhaps. Still, if Waters can draw young audiences to an opera - one far more mainstream than Pink Floyd's quasi-operatic album, "The Wall" - he is already achieving more than most contemporary composers. By his own admission, he leaned on Brahms, Puccini and Prokofiev for inspiration.

The work is written for full orchestra and chorus, and if staged, it would require 12 solo singers. In a Sony Classical recording released in September, the baritone Bryn Terfel, the tenor Paul Groves and the soprano Ying Huang each sang several roles. Here John Relyea and Keel Watson replaced Terfel, and Groves and Huang were joined by five other singers.

How Waters came to write this opera dates back to the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution in 1989, when a friend, the French lyricist Étienne Roda-Gil, showed him a libretto, illustrated with drawings by Roda-Gil's wife, Nadine. It covered the period from early 1789 to Marie-Antoinette's execution in 1793.

"I fell in love with the original manuscript in French," Waters said in an interview in Paris some weeks before the premiere. "I spoke enough French to get it. I liked the idea embodied in it, that 200 years ago, people sat around and decided not only that the ancien regime had had its day but that people should have rights - but not just the French, people everywhere."

Waters promptly prepared a short demonstration tape, which, he said, President François Mitterrand of France heard and liked. Then nothing happened, and the project was shelved for almost a decade.

Eventually, Waters and Roda-Gil resumed work and recorded a section with an orchestra. That won over Sony, which, however, insisted on an English-language version as well as the French one.

What made this project doubly unusual was that Waters could not read music when he began writing "Ça Ira." In his Pink Floyd days, he composed by singing and improvising with instruments. But here he could count on computer programs that enabled him to write the score.

Rick Wentworth, a British musicologist who conducted the Roma Sinfonietta on Thursday, helped him with orchestration.

The libretto, which Waters expanded and adapted to English, inevitably shapes the score, since it imagines the story being recounted and re-enacted in a circus. The Ringmaster provides the principal narrative, and different players, notably Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, either watch events unfold from a box or enter the arena themselves.

But because the libretto is trying to cover so much ground, from the hungry masses and the gluttonous court before Bastille Day to the guillotining of first king, then queen, the narrative imposes a kind of declamatory recitative that leaves little room for soaring arias or even catchy duets and trios. Only occasionally do the chorus and orchestra slow the pace.

And since Waters and Roda-Gil, who died last year, both appear consumed by the ideals contested in the Revolution, the opera's characters are more symbolic than real: not least, Marie Marianne, sung here by Huang, as the personification of the French Republic. So this is an opera without a love story, and as operagoers know, that can be a problem.

The music certainly has echoes of Puccini ("Tosca" is Waters's favorite opera) and Prokofiev (Waters said he had had in mind Prokofiev's score for Eisenstein's movie "Ivan the Terrible").

Reviewing the Sony recording in The New York Times, Allan Kozinn said he was reminded of Claude-Michel Schönberg's music for "Les Misérables," and some Italian critics drew a parallel with the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber.

A full staging of the opera would no doubt add raucous scenes and rich costumes, but images projected onto a large screen above the chorus helped give context to the story here. Some were historical paintings and drawings; others, recent photographs evoking a circus and using actors to depict Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.

But for the moment, a staging remains an idea. More likely, Waters said, are fresh concert versions in other cities.

ROME Aging rockers don't fade away; nor, apparently, do their followers. So two decades after Roger Waters broke with Pink Floyd, as bassist, lead singer and composer, fans flew here from across Europe to hear his latest creation. And it seemed to matter little that he had written a 19th-century-style opera called "Ça Ira" (There Is Hope).

Before the semistaged concert premiere began Thursday in Renzo Piano's new Auditorium Parco Della Musica, Waters was received with whoops and cheers as he welcomed the public in halting Italian. Then, at the intermission and the curtain call, there was more enthusiastic applause for the cast as well as for the composer, at 62 still a striking figure with flowing gray locks.

True, one young British woman wondered, "I don't understand why an opera about the French Revolution is being sung in English in Rome." But she quickly added, "You can hear lots of Pink Floyd in it: the children's choir, the bird sounds."

Well, perhaps. Still, if Waters can draw young audiences to an opera - one far more mainstream than Pink Floyd's quasi-operatic album, "The Wall" - he is already achieving more than most contemporary composers. By his own admission, he leaned on Brahms, Puccini and Prokofiev for inspiration.

The work is written for full orchestra and chorus, and if staged, it would require 12 solo singers. In a Sony Classical recording released in September, the baritone Bryn Terfel, the tenor Paul Groves and the soprano Ying Huang each sang several roles. Here John Relyea and Keel Watson replaced Terfel, and Groves and Huang were joined by five other singers.

How Waters came to write this opera dates back to the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution in 1989, when a friend, the French lyricist Étienne Roda-Gil, showed him a libretto, illustrated with drawings by Roda-Gil's wife, Nadine. It covered the period from early 1789 to Marie-Antoinette's execution in 1793.

"I fell in love with the original manuscript in French," Waters said in an interview in Paris some weeks before the premiere. "I spoke enough French to get it. I liked the idea embodied in it, that 200 years ago, people sat around and decided not only that the ancien regime had had its day but that people should have rights - but not just the French, people everywhere."

Waters promptly prepared a short demonstration tape, which, he said, President François Mitterrand of France heard and liked. Then nothing happened, and the project was shelved for almost a decade.

Eventually, Waters and Roda-Gil resumed work and recorded a section with an orchestra. That won over Sony, which, however, insisted on an English-language version as well as the French one.

What made this project doubly unusual was that Waters could not read music when he began writing "Ça Ira." In his Pink Floyd days, he composed by singing and improvising with instruments. But here he could count on computer programs that enabled him to write the score.

Rick Wentworth, a British musicologist who conducted the Roma Sinfonietta on Thursday, helped him with orchestration.

The libretto, which Waters expanded and adapted to English, inevitably shapes the score, since it imagines the story being recounted and re-enacted in a circus. The Ringmaster provides the principal narrative, and different players, notably Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, either watch events unfold from a box or enter the arena themselves.

But because the libretto is trying to cover so much ground, from the hungry masses and the gluttonous court before Bastille Day to the guillotining of first king, then queen, the narrative imposes a kind of declamatory recitative that leaves little room for soaring arias or even catchy duets and trios. Only occasionally do the chorus and orchestra slow the pace.

And since Waters and Roda-Gil, who died last year, both appear consumed by the ideals contested in the Revolution, the opera's characters are more symbolic than real: not least, Marie Marianne, sung here by Huang, as the personification of the French Republic. So this is an opera without a love story, and as operagoers know, that can be a problem.

The music certainly has echoes of Puccini ("Tosca" is Waters's favorite opera) and Prokofiev (Waters said he had had in mind Prokofiev's score for Eisenstein's movie "Ivan the Terrible").

Reviewing the Sony recording in The New York Times, Allan Kozinn said he was reminded of Claude-Michel Schönberg's music for "Les Misérables," and some Italian critics drew a parallel with the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber.

A full staging of the opera would no doubt add raucous scenes and rich costumes, but images projected onto a large screen above the chorus helped give context to the story here. Some were historical paintings and drawings; others, recent photographs evoking a circus and using actors to depict Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.

But for the moment, a staging remains an idea. More likely, Waters said, are fresh concert versions in other cities.

ROME Aging rockers don't fade away; nor, apparently, do their followers. So two decades after Roger Waters broke with Pink Floyd, as bassist, lead singer and composer, fans flew here from across Europe to hear his latest creation. And it seemed to matter little that he had written a 19th-century-style opera called "Ça Ira" (There Is Hope).

Before the semistaged concert premiere began Thursday in Renzo Piano's new Auditorium Parco Della Musica, Waters was received with whoops and cheers as he welcomed the public in halting Italian. Then, at the intermission and the curtain call, there was more enthusiastic applause for the cast as well as for the composer, at 62 still a striking figure with flowing gray locks.

True, one young British woman wondered, "I don't understand why an opera about the French Revolution is being sung in English in Rome." But she quickly added, "You can hear lots of Pink Floyd in it: the children's choir, the bird sounds."

Well, perhaps. Still, if Waters can draw young audiences to an opera - one far more mainstream than Pink Floyd's quasi-operatic album, "The Wall" - he is already achieving more than most contemporary composers. By his own admission, he leaned on Brahms, Puccini and Prokofiev for inspiration.

The work is written for full orchestra and chorus, and if staged, it would require 12 solo singers. In a Sony Classical recording released in September, the baritone Bryn Terfel, the tenor Paul Groves and the soprano Ying Huang each sang several roles. Here John Relyea and Keel Watson replaced Terfel, and Groves and Huang were joined by five other singers.

How Waters came to write this opera dates back to the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution in 1989, when a friend, the French lyricist Étienne Roda-Gil, showed him a libretto, illustrated with drawings by Roda-Gil's wife, Nadine. It covered the period from early 1789 to Marie-Antoinette's execution in 1793.

"I fell in love with the original manuscript in French," Waters said in an interview in Paris some weeks before the premiere. "I spoke enough French to get it. I liked the idea embodied in it, that 200 years ago, people sat around and decided not only that the ancien regime had had its day but that people should have rights - but not just the French, people everywhere."

Waters promptly prepared a short demonstration tape, which, he said, President François Mitterrand of France heard and liked. Then nothing happened, and the project was shelved for almost a decade.

Eventually, Waters and Roda-Gil resumed work and recorded a section with an orchestra. That won over Sony, which, however, insisted on an English-language version as well as the French one.

What made this project doubly unusual was that Waters could not read music when he began writing "Ça Ira." In his Pink Floyd days, he composed by singing and improvising with instruments. But here he could count on computer programs that enabled him to write the score.

Rick Wentworth, a British musicologist who conducted the Roma Sinfonietta on Thursday, helped him with orchestration.

The libretto, which Waters expanded and adapted to English, inevitably shapes the score, since it imagines the story being recounted and re-enacted in a circus. The Ringmaster provides the principal narrative, and different players, notably Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, either watch events unfold from a box or enter the arena themselves.

But because the libretto is trying to cover so much ground, from the hungry masses and the gluttonous court before Bastille Day to the guillotining of first king, then queen, the narrative imposes a kind of declamatory recitative that leaves little room for soaring arias or even catchy duets and trios. Only occasionally do the chorus and orchestra slow the pace.

And since Waters and Roda-Gil, who died last year, both appear consumed by the ideals contested in the Revolution, the opera's characters are more symbolic than real: not least, Marie Marianne, sung here by Huang, as the personification of the French Republic. So this is an opera without a love story, and as operagoers know, that can be a problem.

The music certainly has echoes of Puccini ("Tosca" is Waters's favorite opera) and Prokofiev (Waters said he had had in mind Prokofiev's score for Eisenstein's movie "Ivan the Terrible").

Reviewing the Sony recording in The New York Times, Allan Kozinn said he was reminded of Claude-Michel Schönberg's music for "Les Misérables," and some Italian critics drew a parallel with the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber.

A full staging of the opera would no doubt add raucous scenes and rich costumes, but images projected onto a large screen above the chorus helped give context to the story here. Some were historical paintings and drawings; others, recent photographs evoking a circus and using actors to depict Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.

But for the moment, a staging remains an idea. More likely, Waters said, are fresh concert versions in other cities.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/22/features/waters.php

Сегодня утром Роджера появился на ТВ UK BBC Breakfast TV, где рассказывал про свою оперу и Live8.

Видео посмтреть можно здесь - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/breakfast/4461002.stm

>Сегодня утром Роджера появился на ТВ UK BBC Breakfast
>TV, где рассказывал про свою оперу и Live8.
>Видео посмтреть можно здесь - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/breakfast/4461002.stm

Теперь можно и скачать - http://ch0gan.homelinux.org/bbc.rm

и аудио - http://ch0gan.homelinux.org/bbc.mp3

Оень неудобно смотреть английские буквы. Может, по-русски будем??

2Vladimir_82:

>Оень неудобно смотреть английские буквы. Может,
>по-русски будем??

Хорошо. Постараюсь самое интересное перевести. Что в моих силах.

да нет, это необязательно, просто тяжело смотреть, кгда все испещрено английским текстом, может, просто ссылками ограничиваться?

Бывший участник и один из основателей Pink Floyd Роджер Уотерс (Roger Waters) сделал признание, которое способно сделать счастливыми миллионы поклонников легендарной группы по всему миру. По словам музыканта, он хотел бы продолжить дальнейшее сотрудничество с музыкантами Pink Floyd. Напомним, что к уходу Уотерса из группы привела затяжная конфронтация с клавишником Риком Райтом. С 1979-го года Pink Floyd выступали уже без Роджера Уотерса, начавшего сольную карьеру.

Первое за 25 лет совместное выступление воссоединившихся в старом составе Pink Floyd состоялось этим летом на благотворительном фестивале Live 8. Сет группы стал одним из самых ярких моментов фестиваля.

«Я хотел бы сделать вместе с ними что-нибудь еще, - сказал Роджер Уотерс в своем недавнем интервью BBС. - Выступление на Live 8 принесло нам большое удовольствие. Перед выступлением мы провели несколько репетиций, и это было как снова одеть старую удобную обувь».

К чему приведет это внезапное потепление в лагере Pink Floyd - сие пока неведомо. Надеемся на лучшее.

music.com.ua

2Vladimir_82:
>да нет, это необязательно, просто тяжело смотреть,
>кгда все испещрено английским текстом, может,
>просто ссылками ограничиваться?

учтём;)

Сейчас идёт программа Джулса Холланда (Jools Holland) на BBC2 Британского ТВ (UKTV) с Роджером в качестве гостя.
==========================
Roger Waters is on Later with Jools Holland as a guest (presumably not
playing music) right now on BBC2, UK TV!

MD (Echoes Digest)

Изданный в этом месяце, ко дню Премьеры Оперы Роджера.

Журнал - часть серии журнала Legends Tribute журнала Rock Star.

Статьи описывают и анализируют ранний период по поздний, включая Оперу Роджера -он сфотографирован снаружи римского Аудиториум,где были даны 2 премьеры оперы.

В журнале есть несколько нигде ранее не опубликованных фотографий.

Подробнее: rockstar@rockstar.it
и www.RockStar.it

25 Ноября

Brain-Damage.co.uk/

Родж дал эксклюзивное интервью Марку Каннингаму, редактору журнала Total Production, после 2 премьер своей оперы в Риме.

Вот отрывок:

"...No, it's not about playing safe and I fully expected to see the knives come out. But I'm happy to say that the knives have been on the dull side, by and large. There's been very little written that's been very dismissive of it. I think there's enough in it musically to prevent them from just saying it's crap. They can accuse it of being crude or that it has relentless crescendos - all those kinds of criticisms - but they can't write it off as not being relevant to the place in which they live. And I'm happy with that."

Целиком интервью можно прочесть по след.ссылке - http://www.brain-damage.co.uk/interviews/rw1105.html

Brain-Damage.co.uk/

Roger Waters, as part of his exhaustive publicity work to promote his opera, Зa Ira, was interviewed on the well-respected, late night UK music TV show, Later With Jools Holland, last night (25th November).

Recorded on Tuesday (22nd November) at the BBC's London studios, the interview was reasonably brief, lasting five minutes, but interesting, nonetheless. It focused on the inevitable topics of the opera, and the Live 8 Pink Floyd reunion.

One particularly interesting bit was shown half way through, when a clip of the 1967 "Tomorrow's World" sequence was shown. This was longer than has been seen in recent years, and included extra moments of the improvisational music the band created to accompany Mike Leonard's light projections.

The interview started with Jools waxing lyrical about Зa Ira, and drawing parallels to the present day. Roger: "Oh yes, France in flames in the suburbs, yes..." He talked of the genesis of the project, and the personnel involved - both on the recording, and at the recent Rome shows.

Jools then asked if it was easier, or harder, working with an 80 piece orchestra than working with Pink Floyd, to which Roger replied that Pink Floyd was always "an absolute doddle!"

Roger dismisses the differences between the classical world and rock world, stating that "music is music... any musician's brief is to try and create an emotional response in whoever's listening to it, and express our truth. And whether you do that with a palette of a symphony orchestra, and a bunch of singers, or with a pop group, doesn't seem to me to make much of a difference."

To wrap things up, Jools asked the inevitable:

Jools: Is there any likelihood of Pink Floyd getting back together again?
Roger: I mean, I see no reason why we shouldn't; as I say, it was enormously enjoyable that day [Live 8] and uh...
Jools: Did the others enjoy it as well?
Roger: Yeah I think so, yeah, um... yeah, they did enjoy it. I don't think so, I KNOW they enjoyed it!
Jools: So you did enjoy it, so the gauntlet's gone down, um, this studio is available for you...
Roger: It was like, yeah, it was a bit like slipping on an old glove. No, I seriously... the first day we rehearsed, y'know we sort of wandered in and started playing Breathe or something and it, it immediately felt kind of comfortable. It was good, it was fun.

Our thanks to Gem and Gary Holderness at the BBC, for their help with this story.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date news posted: 26 November 2005

http://www.brain-damage.co.uk/news/0511262.html

Роджв программе Джулса Холланда, 1

26.11.2005

Родж в программе Джулса Холланда, 2
26.11.2005

On Wednesday the 23rd of November, 2005, Roger Waters appeared on the Charlie Rose Show, arguably America's most intelligent talk show. The nightly program, aired monday through friday on over 200 public broadcast stations, brings together the world's most interesting thinkers, authors, politicians, scientists, athletes, business leaders, as well as the most eclectic mix of personalities from the entertainment world. Host Charlie Rose succeeds in each episode to elicit intelligent and often animated conversation from each of his guests.

The set atmosphere is instantly relaxing, just his trademark roundtable and a dark relaxing backdrop. What really sets the Charlie Rose show apart from all the other talk shows around is on his one hour program the flow of discourse is totally un-interrupted by commercials, allowing for some genuinely entertaining conversation.

Guests on recent and past shows have included former United States president Jimmy Carter, former NBA all-star Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Intel co-founder Gordian Moore, international statesmen Nelson Mandela and Mikhail Gorbachev. Often hour-long shows focus on one guest, such as with Bruce Springsteen and Robin Williams, as well as spending an engrossing week exploring the Human Genome Project. Host Charlie Rose himself is quite gifted with Southern charm, a quick wit and deep knowledge, and is one of the best interviewers around.

Roger Waters appearance on Wednesday night was from what I understand, taped on 11 November 2005, so this was before his Ca Ira Rome premiere and the UK Hall of Fame ceremonies.

Roger's twenty-one minute set began with video clips of Another Brick in the Wall Pt 2, Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking, The Tide is Turning, What God Wants, and Wish You Were Here from his latest live (In The Flesh) DVD.

The actual interview began with some general conversation about how Pink Floyd is regarded today, which Roger commented, "It does seem that the albums in the 70's that Pink Floyd made have transcended the change in the generations," and his recent listening of Dark Side of the Moon in the studio for remixing it into 5.1 (surround sound), Roger kindly commented "I kind of enjoyed it, it does hold up."

With a copy of the Ca Ira CD in Charlie Rose's hand, the tide of conversation turned to Roger's opera; the topics ranged from the timeline of Ca Ira's creation, the Roda-Gil libretto and its translation from French to English, Sony's subsequent involvement in Ca Ira, the opera's amazing cast of singers, the history and politics of the French Revolution, the accurate translation of the title "Ca Ira," and its subtitle of "there is hope."

Roger explained, "I think there is a subtext within this, it's not just a history of the French Revolution, there is a subtext which has to do with the potential that we all have to examine ourselves and how we all feel about good and evil, and how much part we may have to play in the way the world is shaped." You could tell immediately that Roger had the Ca Ira topics well rehearsed from the repetition of recent interviews, but it was interesting nevertheless.

At this point the interview became more direct, with Charlie asking Roger:

Charlie: Do you want to tour again?
Roger: Yeah, I've been doing a number of interviews and that's a question that comes up.
Charlie: I would assume so.
Roger: Yeah, I think I've got at least one more big one in me y'know.
Charlie: You've put together a band?
Roger: I kind of have a band, you know people who'll always work with me when I go on the road. I love them all and we have a great time, and I have you know a considerable audience out there and I'm always slightly surprised at the response. You know we did the tour of South America in 2001 and I've never been there before and it was extraordinary. The kids were all like 18, 19, 20 years old and they knew every word of all the songs and the response was amazing.

More talk of Ca Ira followed, with Roger discussing his love for classical music from the first half of the nineteenth century, then bringing up the recent New York Times review of his CD (which by the way Charlie had a copy of, in his hand), which took some issue with Roger's apparent classical influences filtering through the opera's musical score.

Charlie: When they do question whether this is an opera, do you have any qualms with that observation?
Roger: No, it's theatrical, it's got a beginning, a middle and an end, it's all sung, I think it has every right to call to call itself an opera.
Charlie: Is there anything in this that Pink Floyd fans will recognize or relish?
Roger: I think my voice is pretty apparent through a lot of it, you know there is a way that I handle melody and harmony that I think is very, very apparent in the orchestration and in the writing of the basic themes, and also a lot of it is very direct as well in terms of the way the lyric works with the music.

At this point a short clip of the Ca Ira DVD is shown, showing Roger working in the studio on the musical score and with the musicians. Following this segment, Roger talks about Nadine's illustrations, her illness and personality. As noted above, the recording of this interview precedes the premiere of Ca Ira in Rome since Roger points out that some of Nadine's illustrations will be used as projections when doing concerts in Rome. At this point in the conversation, Charlie and Roger begin to venture deeply into politics, ideology and revolution, the French Revolution, the American and French constitutions, and ultimately a slightly humorous yet serious exchange on the United Kingdom's recent ban on fox hunting:

Charlie: You have a political issue with Britain don't you - didn't you leave?
Roger: I haven't really left, I was spending much more of my time in Manhattan than I am in Hampshire in England. I was very against the ban on fox hunting.
Charlie: Oh that's what it was - fox hunting!
Roger: It was reported that I left on those grounds, but that is not the case.
Charlie: What ever happened to the ban on fox hunting?
Roger: It's this ludicrous thing now that you are allowed to chase foxes on horseback but when you catch it somebody has got to shoot it, and little after the dogs kill it, which is a kind of nonsense I have to say. But why I was against that politically was because you know the central government imposing its will from the inner cities on a group of hard-working good country people who have their own way of life that by and large the Tony Blairs and Tony Banks of this world have no understanding of. We all agree foxes have to be controlled, they're vermin, it's just a question of how. What they (the government) couldn't stand is that people enjoyed hunting, so they were like trying to stamp out fun, and that's by and large what I'm saying. And certainly controlling foxes by hunting them with dogs is certainly no more cruel, in my view, less cruel than shooting them or poisoning them, or gassing.

The conversation now turned more towards world events, specifically the issue of world poverty and the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina:

Roger: Katrina you know has also reminded people that at the heart of the American culture, there is a desire to rebuild the barn and to help the neighbor. When I was growing up in England after the war, there was always this sense....obviously we had the Marshall plan...
Charlie: If the whole barn burned down, we will go over and help them rebuild it.
Roger: Exactly, it seems to me if that's what (it takes), you know if we can focus on that in North America, maybe the USA can give some kind of lead to the rest of the world if it can form more altruistic policies.

The last few minutes of the Charlie Rose show was well spent on the most important topic of all; the possible future of Pink Floyd.

Charlie: You participated in Live 8?
Roger: Yes I did, yeah, yeah we put the Floyd back together to play.
Charlie: That's right! And how was that?
Roger: Oh it was fantastic - it was deeply moving.
Charlie: To be back together?
Roger: Uh yeah, I mean you know most people will know, well a lot of people do know this, but you know when I left (the Floyd) there was a lot of aggravation and a lot of mudslinging, particularly between Dave Gilmour and myself, and uh I kind of regret it, I don't kind of, I deeply regret it, and twenty years down the road. And so to have the opportunity to get back onstage and to play the old songs together, which people loved anyway was really very good for me and for him as well I think, to act like grown-ups instead of kind of spoiled brats throwing their toys out onto the ground.
Charlie: Sometimes it takes an event to get people beyond acting like kids...
Roger: Sometimes it takes the number of the intervening years as well for one's personality to develop and for one to get over some of the you know... stuff.

Roger briefly recalls the initial conversation between David and himself:

Charlie: You know what the next step is?
Roger: What's that?
Charlie: Tour.
Roger: No we won't do that.
Charlie: Why won't you do that - I know you've said that.
Roger: Well, you know what's good about the fact we got back onstage again is that, if you have differing points of view, and y'know it's possible to take entrenched and extreme positions, we see that happening politically, so you can say that this is a model of something larger. And what one has to understand, and as I have gotten older I hope I understand is, Dave and I don't have to agree about everything, or anything really. What we do have to do is understand that we both have the right to our own views, to our own memories, and to our own truths about things and we have to live somewhere here in the middle, accepting the other person's point of view, not trying to control them and change them and say - "you're wrong, no I'm right and so on." We have to come together somewhere in the middle and when you do that you get to the music - or something like that.

Charlie asks where everyone in the band is living now, and is simultaneously trying to think of a way to get them back together again, like right here (on his show) or something. Roger explains David, Nick and Rick live in England, he finds himself back and forth in America and England. Charlie quickly follows up: "So we'll have to do it in London?"

Roger's conversation continues on a roll as only Roger can...

Roger: Listen, if we get back together again, and I absolutely feel in my bones that we will get back together again, it will be for some event like Live 8 where we can perform understanding that we're doing it for a very good reason or a very good cause, and we're doing it in a kind of spirit of harmony, it won't be to go and do a huge tour.

The show wraps up on this high note.

Charlie: Congratulations on this.
Roger: Thank you very much.
Charlie: It's great to have you here.
Charlie: Roger Waters Ca Ira an opera in three acts. Come back, good to have you...
Roger: I'd be delighted.
Charlie: Thank you.

Our thanks to Brain Damage's Paul Powell Jr. for the transcription of this interesting interview.



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Date news posted: 26 November 2005

http://www.brain-damage.co.uk/news/0511261.html