Showing results by narrator "David Timson" in All Categories

Tosca is Puccini at the peak of his theatrical power. The story of the jealous, impassioned opera singer Floria Tosca and her doomed love for the painter Mario Cavaradossi is played out against backgrounds both historically and geographically overwhelming. It is set in three great and historical locations of Rome during the Napoleonic era. Spectacle, sensuality, and cruelty battle for our attention in one of the most truly "action-packed" works of theatre. Enticing us with just a couple of the "great tunes" from this deeply affecting opera, David Timson then begins setting the biographical and operatic scene.

Here are the favorites from Lewis Carroll, Jonathan Swift, William Shakespeare, and more. And that is not to forget perhaps the greatest of them all: Anon. There are ballads, sonnets, proverbs, and nonsense verse. Poems to inform, divert, satirize, castigate and praise. A collection to make all listeners smile, laugh, remember and discover.

A Swedish crime writer as thrilling as Mankell, a detective as compelling as Wallander . . . Håkan Nesser's astonishingly successful Van Veeteren series continues with the eighth book, The Weeping Girl. Winnie Maas died because she changed her mind . . . A community is left reeling after a...

A palmist’s prediction leads to murder; an enigmatic woman’s lifestyle is a mystery to be solved; a ghost tries to frighten the new tenants of his home; a man has discovered the dedicatee of Shakespeare’s Sonnets; a millionaire wants to be painted as a pauper. Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories is a collection of fascinating short stories which are subversive as well as entertaining.

No case is too slight for the mental powers of the Great Detective, in this second selection from The Return of Sherlock Holmes.

Charles Dickens: The Short Stories Collection contains all of Charles Dickens' major published works of short fiction - written between 1836 and 1841. Narrated by award-winning readers David Timson, Nicholas Boulton, and Matt Addis, these stories take us from the hilarious to the heartbreaking, and give a deeper insight into Dickens' life and London in the mid-1800s.

Comprising 10 short stories, The Confessions of Arsène Lupin first appeared in 1913. Each story features the eponymous gentleman-burglar, who deploys his remarkable wit and skill to plot a path through aristocratic society, outwitting both police and criminals along the way. This collection contains tales of romance and mystery, with Lupin himself never above performing the occasional good deed, while pocketing his own rewards, in the course of his adventures.

The Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid) is best known for his epic poem Metamorphoses, a collection of myths and legends from Ancient Greece and Rome. His works continue to be widely read and admired, and he is regarded as one of the most significant poets of ancient Rome. Ovid’s love poems are both brilliant and evocative. In Amores, the romantic mysteriousness of elegiac love-poetry is exploded by his witty and ironic treatment of the form. Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris both lay down the rules for the game of love, which both sexes can play.

A Swedish crime writer as thrilling as Mankell, a detective as compelling as Wallander . . . Håkan Nesser's The Inspector and Silence is the fifth gripping crime novel in the Van Veeteren series. In the heart of summer, the country swelters in a fug of heat. In the beautiful forested lake-town...

Ancient Egypt and the war with Ethiopia is the setting for Verdi’s grandest opera. It is the story of the love between Rhadames, the Egyptian general, and Aida, an Ethiopian slave, and the jealousy of Amneris, daughter of the King of Egypt. It was written in 1871 to a commission from the Khedive of Egypt to inaugurate the new opera house in Cairo. Aida generally is considered one of the most spectacular of Verdi’s operas.

A Swedish crime writer as thrilling as Mankell, a detective as compelling as Wallander . . . The Strangler's Honeymoon is the penultimate gripping Scandinavian crime thriller in the Van Veeteren series by Håkan Nesser. Desperately lonely, sixteen-year-old Monica Kammerle has little idea of what...

Dating from the third century AD, Artemidorus’ The Interpretation of Dreams (Oneirocritica) is the only dream-book from Graeco-Roman antiquity that has survived intact. It represents the most influential pre-Freudian treatment of dreams and the theory of their interpretation. In the ancient world it was widely believed that some dreams had allegorical significance that, if correctly interpreted, offered insight into the future. Artemidorus makes a clear distinction between predictive and non-predictive dreams, setting out the general principle of interpretation.

Don Giovanni has long been regarded as Mozart’s supreme theatrical achievement. The subject seems unpromising - the last day in the life of the notorious womanizer Don Juan - but the skill of the librettist allied to the genius of Mozart at the very peak of his powers has created a work which is not only highly entertaining but reflects an incredible understanding of the human condition.

Further adventures by the master of observation and deduction, as faithfully recounted by his companion and greatest admirer, Dr Watson. The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans, The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax and The Adventure of the Dying Detective are among the stories. David Timson's award-winning performances continue with this series.

A fugitive stalks the shadows of the Petitioner's City. Though his fellow Outcast Dead are no more, the lone wolf Severian still intends to escape from Terra by any means possible - but the enigmatic hunter Yasu Nagasena is in pursuit. As news of the massacre on Isstvan V continues to spread and Severian's trail doubles back to the place where it all began, both he and Nagasena must face some uncomfortable truths - and an even more uncertain future.

La Traviata owes its enduring popularity to a superb story of young love and fatal sacrifice, set to music by Italy’s master melodist at the peak of his powers. Interest and poignancy are added by the fact that this is a true story - the baritone ‘heavy’ is Alexander Dumas who wrote The Count of Monte Cristo. But it is the central figure, the heroine Violetta, the archetypal ‘whore with the heart of gold’ who dominates the piece. It is her opera and we love her for it.

With the possible exception of Mozart, Verdi is the most popular opera composer who ever lived. Quite early in his career his tunes were being cranked out by barrel organs throughout Europe and were well known to many who may never even have heard his name. But the complex man behind them remains elusive and puzzling. In this portrait-in-sound, Jeremy Siepmann and a group of distinguished actors take an in-depth look behind the popular image of a man who was, and perhaps remains, the most enduring national hero in Italian history and a colossus in the history of music itself.

Carmen is among the most popular operas for all the obvious reasons: great characters, a gripping story, and fabulous music. But what sets it on a pinnacle is an amazing combination of three factors: a sizzling Gipsy heroine (one of the most psychologically complex and compelling characters in all theatre), great atmosphere (Spain, hot sun, the bull-ring), and the prodigality of melodic invention - one great tune after another, at least a dozen of which are the staples of Madison Avenue and the animated cartoon.

Rigoletto is simply wonderful entertainment with superb music. It is also much more - a daring (for its time) attack on aristocratic privilege, a tender love story, and an impassioned appeal on behalf of the disadvantaged, all set to music of such wealth and beauty that, with its sister operas La traviata and Il trovatore, it has defined Italian opera for 150 years. Overcoming initial trouble with the censors, Verdi's Rigoletto was a smash hit at its premiere and has not been out of the repertoire since. It’s not hard to see why.

Four more stories from the master detective. The mystery of the missing suitor is solved and Sherlock Holmes raises his whip: an Indian pot stands in the shadows of a Colonel's death; serious affairs of state and international diplomacy are threatened by a theft; and surely evil intent lies behind threats in a hidden house. The cool observations and swift action of Mr. Sherlock Holmes resolves all.