Novels adapted into operas
12 episodes
Episodes in this category also belong to the following categories:
A Christmas Carol
From Bah Humbug to God Bless Us Every One: Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Charles Dickens' story of Scrooge's salvation by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet To Come.
16 December 2021
Featuring: Juliet John, Jon Mee, Dinah Birch
CultureBritish novels adapted into filmsVictorian novelsNovels set in LondonBritish novels adapted into television shows1840s fantasy novels, Ghost novelsNovels adapted into operasNovels adapted into balletsChapman & Hall booksBritish novellasBooks illustrated by Arthur RackhamNovels set in the 19th centuryNovels about time travelBritish novels adapted into playsDeath in Venice
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Mann's infamous novella of 1912, exploring the link between creativity and self-destruction.
15 June 2023
Featuring: Karolina Watroba, Erica Wickerson, Sean Williams
Don Quixote
Melvyn Bragg discusses the importance, originality and enduring appeal of Cervantes’ classic 17th century Spanish novel Don Quixote, a cornerstone of Western literature.
16 March 2006
Featuring: Barry Ife, Edwin Williamson, Jane Whetnall
Fielding's Tom Jones
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Henry Fielding's influential comic novel in which the hero Jones has such a fundamentally good nature that even his critics forgive his faults.
13 June 2024
Featuring: Judith Hawley, Henry Power, Charlotte Roberts
Journey to the West
Melvyn Bragg discusses the much loved Chinese novel from 1592, featuring Monkey, Tripitaka, Sandy and Pigsy, as they travel to India to bring back Buddhist texts.
20 May 2021
Featuring: Julia Lovell, Chiung-yun Evelyn Liu, Craig Clunas
Moby Dick
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Moby-Dick (1851) by Herman Melville, the story of Ahab and the white whale, the most popular of around 1,000 ideas that listeners submitted.
7 December 2017
Featuring: Bridget Bennett, Katie McGettigan, Graham Thompson
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Orwell's dystopian novel where the state rewrites history, war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength - and Big Brother is watching you
15 September 2022
Featuring: David Dwan, Lisa Mullen, John Bowen
CultureBritish novels adapted into filmsNovels set in LondonBritish novels adapted into television showsEnglish novelsBritish science fiction novelsCensored booksNovels adapted into operasNovels set in fictional countriesNovels adapted into balletsDystopian novelsSocial science fictionNovels adapted into radio programsBritish political novels, Novels about propaganda, Novels about revolutionaries, Novels about totalitarianism, Novels by George Orwell, Secker & Warburg booksBritish novels adapted into playsTess of the d'Urbervilles
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, which challenged Victorian morality and made Hardy's fortune when published in the 1890s.
5 May 2016
Featuring: Dinah Birch, Francis O'Gorman, Jane Thomas
The Great Gatsby
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great American novels of the 20th Century, where inexplicably rich Jay Gatsby aims to win Daisy Buchanan from her millionaire husband.
14 January 2021
Featuring: Sarah Churchwell, Philip McGowan, William Blazek
CultureMetafictional novelsNovels adapted into operasAmerican novels adapted into films, American novels adapted into plays, American novels adapted into television showsNovels adapted into balletsNovels adapted into comicsNovels about adulteryMurder–suicide in fictionNovels adapted into radio programsModernist novelsThe Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Anne Bronte's story of the mysterious Helen Graham who seeks a new independent life as an artist after escaping her abusive, alcoholic husband.
30 September 2021
Featuring: Alexandra Lewis, Marianne Thormählen, John Bowen
Tristram Shandy
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Laurence Sterne's comic novel Tristram Shandy.
24 April 2014
Featuring: Judith Hawley, John Mullan, Mary Newbould
CultureIrish novels adapted into films, Irish novels adapted into plays18th-century British novelsMetafictional novelsNonlinear narrative novelsSelf-reflexive novelsNovels adapted into operasPicaresque novelsNovels adapted into comicsBritish satirical novelsNovels adapted into radio programs1759 novelsWuthering Heights
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emily Bronte's story of Heathcliff and Cathy, of love, hatred, revenge and self-destruction across two generations in a remote moorland home.
28 September 2017
Featuring: Karen O'Brien, John Bowen, Alexandra Lewis
CultureBritish novels adapted into filmsVictorian novels1847 British novelsBritish novels adapted into television showsFrame storiesNonlinear narrative novels1840s fantasy novels, Ghost novelsNovels adapted into operasBritish Gothic novelsNovels set in the 18th centuryNovels adapted into balletsNovels set in YorkshireNovels about revengeWorks published under a pseudonymFiction with unreliable narratorsFiction about suicideLove stories