of his remarkable tenure as music director of the royal opera house in london, one of the top jobs in opera. as a celebrated conductor, he wins praise and plaudits for his style and brilliance. he wants to smell every little new idea that comes up, every glimpse. tony is the music. he unites everyone. he cares about securing the future of opera and helps to train the big names of tomorrow. maestro pappano has been a great| help into nurturing talent of people like me who are young artists. he's very encouraging. i go behind the scenes at the royal opera house to see tony in action and ask if opera is losing its relevance for new audiences and whether he thinks it's making itself fit for the future. i think every major opera house wants to entice younger audiences. it must do everything and be open to the interests of many different people. let me take you to the opera! sir antonio pappano, or tony, as he prefers to be known, has the signature flair of his italian roots, combined with a detailed knowledge of music that has made him one of the most popular conductors of our age. tony has been in so much demand that over the last two decades, he's simultaneously held two leading posts — music director at the santa cecilia orchestra in rome and at london's royal opera house. he's such a unique personality as well as a wonderful musician and artist. there's that inimitable fire, that unquestioning commitment that he brings to every single performance that he does here. it's that level of passion which really comes across. cheering and applause he steps down from his post in rome in september 2023, and the following summer he leaves the royal opera house after a record 22 years. but it won't mean the end of tony's love affair with opera. he will be a guest conductor here at the royal opera house in covent garden, where there have been so many key changes during his time as music director. i've been invited to see tony in rehearsals for an upcoming performance with one of the biggest names in opera and a personal personalfavourite, german tenorjonas kaufmann, who always relishes the opportunity to work with tony. it's. ..lovely to see you. welcome. and to see you, thank you. way, way, way, way, way... he sings werther, by the french composer massenet, is a tragic love story based on a novel by the german author goethe. jonas kaufmann is performing the title role alongside russian mezzo soprano aigul akhmetshina. sir tony pappano's reputation has been forged in the rehearsal room, so it's absolutely fantastic for me to see the maestro at work. you know, you should always start with talking to him in a position. just keep...talk to him, and then when he goes, "i love you," any more, then go to his chest and you know, but... 0k. ..but be careful, because otherwise you're lost in there. i mean, she's screaming... laughter ..in a very wonderful way... thank you! ..but i mean, really loud. and if he says... jonas sings quietly tony and i came together and discussed what we could do here in one of his last seasons at the royal opera house. and it turned out that werther is one of his all—time favourite pieces. i didn't know. so we said, "well, then let's do it." what's it like singing when you're lying down? because, i mean, that is much harder to project, isn't it? n is. — it is more difficult. that is true, because, you see, the natural way of breathing is obviously when you're standing or kneeling or something. but it does work. and, you see, wouldn't it be strange if someone is dying and on the floor and it would sound absolutely impeccable? yes, very true. you see, that is part of the acting and of the credibility that it is in an uncomfortable position, because he's about to die and about to bleed to death. that's it, that's it! that's it! what makes it unique to work with tony? it's a very long list, i think, of ingredients that make tony special and unique in the operatic world. it's an enormous difference if you have a conductor who is actually sucking in energy, who is constantly taking the energy from orchestra and from stage. or if you have someone who is like a sun in a solar system, tojust spread it here and there and it carries you all the way through. and you will probably only realise once you come back to your dressing room what you've done and how much you've been capable or willing to give. this is. . .that�*s you! that's not you, that's you. and so i think that will help prepare you. he's so supportive. he breathes with you. he sings with you. for that reason, - he feels every second. if something goes wrong, he will catch you. - he always supports singers. that's a very rare quality now in the opera industry. - take half an hour. i don't care how long that note is, but don't make it short. stay long. for him, it's very important that you're creating - the whole story together. it's very strong teamwork. tony pappano learned the value of teamwork from a very early age. his first musical partnership was with his father, pasquale. tony's parents moved to the uk from southern italy. his father studied music while working as a cook and later became a vocal coach in london. his mother, carmela maria, took on a variety ofjobs. they worked themselves to the bone, really, two, threejobs each, morning, noon and night. quite menial ones at times? oh, absolutely. my mother cleaned offices in the morning. my brother and i used to clean them with her before we went to school. to survive and to have... ..to have a life, we had tojust, you know, work as hard as possible. and of course, that stayed with me. tony started playing the piano at the age of six, and by the time he was ten, he was regularly accompanying his father when he gave voice lessons. you know, the family business, you know, that means after school, running home, getting on the bus and going to the west end, where they were, where he would rent the studios and teach until quite late at night. i was with him, so i didn't have that kind of after—school sort of life with my friends and all that. when tony was in his early teens, the family moved to connecticut in the united states, where his father became a music teacher, with tony as his accompanist. opera plays tony sings note i wish i was a tenor just to do this. i wasn't crazy about it at the time, you know, because when i was a teenager, especially, you know, the sound of, "tony, tony." you know, he's ready. the student is ready. you know, i mean...and hearing vocal exercises... he sings scales you know, that kind of... ..that kind of haunting me to this day. i learned with my father how to talk to singers, which is a great advantage for me today. i mean, you've seen me rehearse and i talk to the singers not only about singing in time and in tune, but i tell them about the acting, too, and how to time that with the words and how to... you know, that's something that i've nurtured sort of unbeknownst to even myself over many, many years, because that's what i think a conductor of opera has to be. at 22, tony got a job at the new york city opera, but it came at a personal cost. to this day, incredible difficulty dealing with the fact that i had to leave my father to obviously to...to seek my fortune. spread your wings. you know? my mother encouraged me, you know, very much behind the scenes to go do the audition. i had an introduction and i went and did an audition, got thejob. but that means six days a week i was not available to my father. on the seventh day, you know, the day of rest, right, i would play for his students all day, but that didn't work any more. and so that was very, very difficult because it left my father, who didn't play very well, he could play with one hand, left him in the lurch. was he devastated ? well, he would never say it, but of course he was. and i knew i had to... ..seek other experiences because i started... when i started working in the opera house, i got a taste of what was out there. the big breakthrough came when the renowned pianist and conductor daniel barenboim invited tony to be his assistant at the bayreuth music festival in germany, where he remained for six years. i learned so much from him. i mean, can you imagine playing the piano for somebody like him? it's scary, but you're learning something every day, not only because you're in the presence of a great musician, but because you're in the presence of somebody who's going to push you. and i had very little conducting experience, so you're thrown in the deep end, and if you survive that, you come out, you know, enriched and, sure, battle scarred. tony may have been barenboim's protege, but he soon began tony may have been barenboim's protege, but he soon began making his own mark. however, at first, he had no ambition to become a conductor. i must say that i'm still getting around to the idea of being a conductor. ijust kind of... i did it a little bit at the beginning, and then it became more and more. and then i did it and then all of a sudden i was being rehired. miracle of miracles. that's the key, to be rehired. and ijust fell into it. and then it was bigger than me and i went along with it. sir antonio pappano made his debut as an opera conductor in 1987 with puccini's la boheme at the state opera house in norway, where, three years later, he became music director. when i conducted my first opera, when i walked into the rehearsal room... ..i just exploded. all the experience of having played those pieces for my father, for other conductors, having watched rehearsals with myriad singers singing these parts, singing these parts, having, you know... all of a sudden, it all came out of me. one of the many singers whom tony has mentored is the south african soprano masabane cecilia rangwanasha. you still must sing with that refinement. when you've got the technical refinement, then you can add this overwhelming... emotion. but really lovely, terrific. and tony was the conductor of her debut in a major role when she sang the part of liu in puccini's turandot at the royal opera house. it was an amazing run. it was all like a dream come true. and what makes him such a good conductorfrom a young singer's perspective? he knows the voice, so he knows how to work with the voice and also to incorporate your voice with the orchestra. it was amazing to work with maestro pappano as a conductor, you know, focusing on the music and also the text. she sings aria coming up, we see how antonio pappano thinks he's conducted around 700 performances over two decades at the royal opera house in london as its music director. he believes opera does not deserve the reputation of being an elitist artform. i think there's this disconnect and i get really offended by the people who say we're elitist. the fact of the matter is that it's harder to get into a football game in london than it is to get into the opera house. opera house can and must be many things. it shouldn't cater just to one audience, and it shouldn't be focused on just one corner of the repertoire. it must do everything and be open to the interests of many different people. i think you have to be honest and say, well, yes, but younger people can't afford very expensive tickets, can they? so you have to have a certain amount of investment if you want to achieve this. here at covent garden, we are doing that. we're investing in that. but i think you have to find also a combination of newer titles, titles that have contemporary subject. but i do not believe that you need to really have modern productions of old standard pieces. a younger person comes to the opera house and sees something maybe even old —fashioned. that's great, too, as long as it's full of energy, as long as the singers are really delivering. there's a wonderful romantic story, shall we say. it's the final full dress rehearsal for the werther cast before opening night, and the audience gathers ahead of the performance. bell rings applause orchestra plays it was my first opera and i thought it was really incredible. _ it's still a very relatable and interesting story, . regardless of the time period. i'm a huge fan of antonio pappano, and i think werther actually is one of his best in his career. he's made an outstanding contribution to opera over the decades. tony and the team at covent garden also want to expose young performers from a variety of backgrounds to opera. chorus the royal opera house youth opera company is a talent development programme here at the royal opera house. we have an open recruitment process every year, and it's really important to us that our company really reflects the city that we live in. so we try to make sure there's a real variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, of ethnicities and an even gender split as well. the majority of our young people who join us will come from families who probably have had no real experience of opera. what's it like for them working with sir antonio pappano? do they appreciate that they are in the midst of a great maestro? they don't really understand the sort of the size of the reputation that tony is kind of carrying into that room. and for many of them, it's the first time they've worked probably with a conductor. so they bring a real sort ofjoyful playfulness into the room. and what i think we love watching is how tony matches that, that he has such a sort of natural warmth with them and he's so dedicated to nurturing our next generation, that he really isjust a joy for them to work with. tony has come a long way since he himself was a child. he conducted the orchestra at westminster abbey for king charles' coronation. i grew up in a councilflat right behind westminster abbey, and having recently conducted at the coronation, it's a four—minute walk from that council flat to westminster abbey. so i haven't travelled very far in 63 years. a councilflat, of course, is public housing, and it was a fairly rundown area when you were living in it. yeah. well, you know, it was... it was pretty simple, shall we say. but, look, i haven't come very far, but i've come... it is a pretty good gig, isn't it? tony's departure from the royal opera house is a time of change for him and a chance to reflect about what he wants to do in the future. i'm looking forward to just slowing the tempo a little bit. i don't think i'm going to get into pottery any time soon or... and i don't think i'm a great gardener, but i love to eat and i love to drink. and i'd love to find a way to be quiet. but those who know me, you know, i'm not going to, you know, sort of step back too far, because that energy is what drives me and the need to stick my nose into everything. i'm going from having twojobs tojust having onejob. tony's new post will be chief conductor of the london symphony orchestra. but his legacy at the royal opera house means he's a role model for young opera conductors. there's all sorts of videos of him talking through the operas. you can hear the joy in his voice when he speaks about it. and because they're all over youtube, i mean, i've youtube, i mean, i've watched all of those. you know, that was one thing definitely that got me into it and made me want to explore more about opera. |he's conducted so many fabulousj performances here over the years that have generated so much energy and passion and enthusiasm - from our audience and our orchestra and everyone who works _ in the building as well. if you have a vision for what you want to achieve in life, if you have that spark and if you have the energy and if you have the resilience to keep pushing when, you know, things will get tough, you'll make it in any walk of life. applause whenever i come to the royal opera house to see tony in action, it never ceases to thrill me. his experience, his incredible talent, his insights make him truly unique. and although he's taking a bow on one chapter of his career, he will continue to enthral and inspire audiences. and he perhaps best demonstrates how opera is not an elitist artform. it is about excellence and the virtues of hard work and dedication. hello. thanks for tuning in to our weather forecast for the next ten days. and i can tell you straight away that there's absolutely no let—up to the kind of weather we've been having for weeks now. so, once again, early august is going to be changeable, on the cool side, with rain at times. and if we look at the recent satellite picture, you can see weather systems, a daisy chain of them, lining up in the atlantic and heading our way. and through the course of this week, crucially, quite a strong jet stream across the atlantic. also pointing in our direction, you can see even some dips in the jet stream, or troughs, as we call it in meteorology. and that means that cooler air at times will be streaming in from the north. i think thursday will be a particularly cool day across the north of the country whereas the warm weather is reserved for the southern climes. onto the forecast, then, for monday, and extensive cloud after a wet sunday night. the morning temperatures around eight o'clock on monday will be typically in the high teens across england and wales. that's because this is tropical maritime air. but in the north of scotland, after a clearer night, quite a bit fresher there first thing. but i think the overall message for monday is one of cloudy skies, bursts of rain now and then almost anywhere across the country. but yes, through the layers of cloud, there will be some bright or sunny spells poking through. and i think at times, we'll be getting them across the south and the south—west of england, possibly to the east of the pennines, but they may be brief here. and that's how we're going to end monday, so on a cloudy note and with rain at times. now, tuesday admittedly is going to be a better day. it's not going to be bad at all, i think, across many parts of southern and eastern england — some sunny spells, lengthy spells of sunshine in fact. 21 for london, maybe a few showers in the north of england and scotland. but the next low pressure will be sweeping in and will park itself over the uk on wednesday, and quite an angry—looking area of low pressure there. potentially some strong winds blowing across parts of southern england, even near—gale force around some of the coasts. in the north of scotland, i think the weather will be better. clearly, most of the rain is across england and wales during the course of wednesday and the temperatures around 18—20 degrees at best. now, once that area of low pressure clears away, and it will do, eventually towards the east, into scandinavia, behind it, this back edge will see colder winds coming in from the north and i think quite chilly around the north coasts of scotland, maybe along the north sea coast. inland, we'll feel that breeze as well. temperatures still will nudge up to around about 20 degrees or so in the south, maybe in one or two sheltered spots futher north, too. but i think showers will arrive on thursday and friday to summer. some of the showers could even be quite heavy and maybe even the odd rumble of thunder towards the end of the week. and look at those temperatures, 15 in aberdeen, 17 in belfast, high teens in the south. now, let's have a look at the forecast. so, this is the following weekend, so we're well into august here. again, similar weather, quite changeable. and now i'm going to go a little bit further, deeper into august, if you like. let's see what the jet stream is doing. so, this is a rough idea of what the jet stream might be, how it might be behaving, and it looks as though it will be generally close to the uk, and at times, south of us, which means this unsettled weather will continue. bye— bye. live from london, this is bbc news. at least 37 people have been killed in a bomb blast at a political gathering in pakistan. hundreds of supporters of niger's military coup protest outside the french embassy in niamey as france stops aid. president putin praises the might of russia's navy. but doesn't dismiss the idea of peace talks over ukraine. here in the uk, the prime minister insists he's on the side of car drivers and wants traffic—reducing measures reviewed. hello, i'm monika plaha. welcome to the programme. at least 37 people have been killed in an explosion at a political rally in north—west pakistan. dozens more were injured in the explosion in the bajour district, where the leader of an islamist party was due to address the gathering. local clinics and hospitals have been overwhelmed by casualties, and the authorities have declared a health emergency. the party has urged its supporters to donate blood. the tribal area of bajour is near pakistan's border with afghanistan. it's not immediately clear what caused the explosion, though police suspect it was a suicide bomber. no organisation has admitted carrying out the attack. our pakistan correspondent, caroline davies has the latest,