Impossible Interview

Written and hosted by

Michael Dervan

Gioachino Rossini performed by

Peter McCamley

The Festival’s much-loved Impossible Interview returns for a very special 75th anniversary edition.

Michael Dervan, with his regular collaborator Peter McCamley as Rossini, tries to unravel the contradictions of a composer who was also one of the wittiest people of his time. Rossini was the most famous composer anywhere in the world in the 1820s. And not just of opera. He eclipsed Beethoven and everyone else in the current firmament of great figures. He composed William Tell at the age of 37 after which he never added to his tally of around 40 operas. For the rest of his days he was a living legend, a kind of mystery man, half in, half out of the wider world of music – in truth, more out than in.

A famous gourmand, he was a close friend of the first celebrity chef, Marie-Antoine Carême. In his final years in Paris he ran the most sought-after, exclusive soirées in the city, and composed his idiosyncratic ‘Sins of Old Age. And he also had some unexpected Irish friends. Encounter one of opera’s great figures as you’ve never experienced him before.

Through wit, insight, and carefully chosen musical moments, past and present meet in a conversation that is by turns revealing, entertaining and thought-provoking.