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The newly commissioned work that followed was Kate Soper’s “Orpheus Orchestra Opus Onus,” a sensationally witty and profound monodrama about the meaning of music for amplified soprano and large orchestra.

Soper herself was the talented soloist, as she had been a few weeks earlier when she appeared at the L.A.

A favorite of operatic progressives, Soper has had three operas staged by Long Beach Opera, including the premiere of her astonishingly fanciful “Romance of the Rose,” perhaps the most original American opera of the decade.

Tony Soper co-founded the BBC's Natural History Unit, which began in Bristol in 1957 and has since produced countless wildlife programmes around the world.

Mr Soper was born in Southampton in 1929 and brought up in Plymouth, where he started his career at the corporation as a trainee engineer in 1947.