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This week Kate Molleson talks to one of the great mezzo-sopranos, Alice Coote as she prepares for her role as Orpheus in Wayne McGregor’s production of Orpheus and Eurydice by Christoph Gluck at English National Opera this season. As the curtain rises on English National Opera's Orpheus season Kate explores how myth of Orpheus has resonated through time with conductor John Butt, classicist Charlotte Higgins, singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell and Netia Jones, director of Philip Glass’s opera Orphée. Orlando Figes talks about his new book "The Europeans, Three Lives and the Making of a Cosmopolitan Culture" which tells how Europe's cultural life transformed during the course of the 19th century through the lives of the great singer Pauline Viardot, her husband Louis, and the writer Ivan Turgenev.

Photography © Jiyang Chen