Last night, Roger Waters was subject to an interesting interview with BBC Radio 2's Stuart Maconie. Lasting around 17 minutes, the interview was chiefly concerned with Roger's forthcoming opera, Ca Ira (including mention of US performances), but also explored the reunion with Pink Floyd for the Live 8 concert, back in July.

The discussion of Ca Ira had Roger talking about it at length, from the genesis of the project (including comments about French leader of the time, Francois Mitterand, and his reaction to an English bass player doing a piece about the French Revolution!) through to fruition - its release later this month.

He explains the background to the story, how it came to be written, and how he adapted it from Etienne Roda-Gil's original libretto. Maconie draws parallels to past works such as Atom Heart Mother; Roger concurs that he has always been interested in long, elaborate works.

The second half looks at the Live 8 reunion. Roger reveals that he wanted to start with In The Flesh ("I've got an attachment to all the marching hammer stuff!"), and said that he felt it rather hypocritical to think that political leaders should let bygones be bygones to achieve something, if he couldn't speak to David Gilmour! He discussed how the initial negotiations were made, between him, Bob Geldof, David and Nick Mason.

When asked if he'd do it again, he quickly said: "I don't see why not!" as long as the cause - either charitable or political - was good enough.

Finally, looking to the future, he talked about the November performance of Ca Ira in Rome. He said that he'd be conducting The Overture, but the rest of it would be someone else (we guess Rick Wentworth but this isn't confirmed, yet). He also said that there are talks underway to hold around half a dozen performances in the US, in the spring of 2006.

To listen to the interview, go to www.BBC.co.uk/Radio2 and click on the "Listen Again" link. The BBC Radio Player will appear, and you will need to select Johnny Walker's Drivetime show for Thursday (Stuart is standing in for Johnny this week). The stream should then start, and you need to fast forward through to around the one hour, thirty minute point for the interview. All BBC shows are made available to listen to again, for a period of seven days following the broadcast.