The Fairy-Queen (1692; Purcell catalogue number Z.629) is a
masqueThe masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in sixteenth and early seventeenth century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio Masque involved music and dancing, singing and acting, within an elaborate stage design, in which...
or
semi-operaThe terms Semi-opera, dramatic[k] opera and English opera were all applied to Restoration entertainments that combined spoken plays with masque-like episodes employing singing and dancing characters. They usually included machines in the manner of the restoration spectacular...
by
Henry PurcellHenry Purcell , was an English Baroque composer. Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements but devised a peculiarly English style of Baroque music.-Early life and career:...
; a "
Restoration spectacularThe Restoration spectacular, or elaborately staged "machine play", hit the London public stage in the late 17th-century Restoration period, enthralling audiences with action, music, dance, moveable scenery, baroque illusionistic painting, gorgeous costumes, and special effects such as trapdoor...
". The
librettoA libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, sacred or secular oratorio and cantata, musical, and ballet. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata.Libretto ,...
is an anonymous adaptation of
William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's wedding comedy
A Midsummer Night's DreamA Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare. It was suggested by "The Knight's Tale" from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and written around 1594 to 1596...
. First performed in 1692,
The Fairy-Queen was composed three years before Purcell's death at the age of 34. Following his death, the score was lost and only rediscovered early in the twentieth century. Both a growing interest in
Baroque musicBaroque music describes a style of European classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1750. This era is said to begin in music after the Renaissance and was followed by the Classical era...
and the rise of the
countertenorA countertenor is a male singing voice whose vocal range is equivalent to that of a contralto, mezzo-soprano, or a soprano, usually through use of falsetto, or more rarely the normal or modal voice. A pre-pubescent male who has this ability is called a treble...
contributed to its re-entry into the operatic repertoire. The opera received several full-length recordings in the latter part of the 20th century and several of its arias, including "The Plaint" ("O let me weep"), have become popular recital pieces. In July 2009, in celebration of the 350th anniversary of Purcell's birth,
The Fairy-Queen was performed by
Glyndebourne Festival OperaGlyndebourne Festival Opera is an opera festival held at Glyndebourne, a country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England.Under the supervision of the Christie family, the festival has been held annually since 1934, except in 1993, when the theatre was being rebuilt. The renovated theatre opened...
using a new edition of the score, prepared for The Purcell Society by Bruce Wood and Andrew Pinnock.
Original production
The Fairy-Queen was first performed on 2 May 1692 at the Queen's Theatre, Dorset Garden in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
by the
United CompanyThe United Company was a theatre company formed in 1682 from the merger of the King's Company and the Duke's Company.Both the Duke's and King's Companies suffered poor attendance during the turmoil of the Popish Plot period, 1678–81...
. The author or at least co-author of the
librettoA libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, sacred or secular oratorio and cantata, musical, and ballet. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata.Libretto ,...
was presumably
Thomas BettertonThomas Patrick Betterton , English actor, son of an under-cook to King Charles I, was born in London.-Apprentice and actor:...
, the manager of Dorset Garden Theatre, with whom Purcell worked regularly. This belief is based on an analysis of Betterton's stage directions. A collaboration between several playwrights is also feasible. Choreography for the various dances was provided by
Josias PriestJosias Priest was an English dancer, dancing-master and choreographer.- History :In 1669, he was arrested along with four others for dancing and making music without a license. In 1668, he was a dancing-master in Holborn, and in 1675 he moved to Leicester Fields to run a boarding school for...
, who also worked on
DioclesianDioclesian is a tragicomic semi-opera in five acts by Henry Purcell to a libretto by Thomas Betterton based on the play The Prophetess, by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, which in turn was based very loosely on the life of the Emperor Diocletian. It was premiered in late May of 1690 at the...
and
King ArthurKing Arthur or, The British Worthy , is a semi-opera in five acts with music by Henry Purcell and alibretto by John Dryden. It was first performed at the Queen's Theatre, Dorset Garden, London, in late May or early June 1691....
, and who was associated with
Dido and AeneasDido and Aeneas is an opera by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell, from a libretto by Nahum Tate. The first known performance was at Josias Priest's girls' school in the spring of 1689...
.
Purcell did not set any of
Shakespeare'sWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
text to music; instead he composed music for short masques in every act but the first. The play itself was also slightly modernized in keeping with seventeenth-century dramatic conventions, but in the main the spoken text is as Shakespeare wrote it. The masques are related to the play metaphorically, rather than literally. Many critics have stated erroneously that they bear no relationship to the play, but recent scholarship has shown that the opera, which ends with a masque featuring Hymen, the God of Marriage, was actually composed for the fifteenth wedding anniversary of
William and MaryThe phrase William and Mary usually refers to the joint sovereignty over the Kingdom of England, as well as the Kingdom of Scotland, of King William III and his wife Queen Mary II, a daughter of James II...
.
A letter describing the original performance shows that the parts of Titania and
OberonOberon is a legendary king of the fairies.Oberon may also refer to:-People:* Merle Oberon , British actress* Oberon Zell-Ravenheart , Neopagan activist-Media and entertainment:* Oberon...
were played by children of eight or nine. Presumably other fairies were also played by children; this affects our perspective on the staging.
Context and analysis
Following the huge success of his operas
DioclesianDioclesian is a tragicomic semi-opera in five acts by Henry Purcell to a libretto by Thomas Betterton based on the play The Prophetess, by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, which in turn was based very loosely on the life of the Emperor Diocletian. It was premiered in late May of 1690 at the...
(1690) and
King ArthurKing Arthur or, The British Worthy , is a semi-opera in five acts with music by Henry Purcell and alibretto by John Dryden. It was first performed at the Queen's Theatre, Dorset Garden, London, in late May or early June 1691....
(1691), Purcell composed
The Fairy-Queen in 1692.
Purcell's "First" and "Second Music" were played while the audience were taking their seats. The "Act Tunes" are played between acts, as the curtain was normally raised at the beginning of a performance and not lowered until the end. After Act I, each act commences with a short
symphonyA symphony is an extended musical composition, scored almost always for orchestra. "Symphony" does not necessarily imply a specific form though most are composed according to the sonata principle...
(3–5 minutes).
The English tradition of semi-opera, to which
The Fairy-Queen belongs, demanded that most of the music within the play be introduced through the agency of supernatural beings, the exception being pastoral or drunken characters. All the masques in
The Fairy-Queen are presented by Titania or Oberon. Originally Act I contained no music, but due to the work's enormous success it was revived in 1693, when Purcell added the scene of the Drunken Poet and two further songs later on in the work; "Ye gentle spirits of the air" and "The Plaint". As said above, each masque is subtly related to the action in the play during that particular act in a metaphorical way. In this manner we have Night and Sleep in Act II, which is apt as that act of the play consists of Oberon's plans to use the power of the "
love-in-idlenessHeartsease redirects here, for the place, see Heartsease, Powys or Heartsease, NorwichHeartsease is a common European wild flower, growing as an annual or short-lived perennial...
" flower to confuse various loves, and it is therefore appropriate for the allegorical figures of Secrecy, Mystery
et al. to usher in a night of enchantment. The masque for Bottom in Act III includes metamorphoses, songs of both real and feigned love, and beings who are not what they seem. The Reconciliation masque between Oberon and Titania at the end of Act IV prefigures the final masque. The scene changes to a Garden of Fountains, denoting King William's hobby, just after Oberon says "bless these Lovers' Nuptial Day". The Four Seasons tell us that the marriage here celebrated is a good one all year round and "All Salute the rising Sun"/...The Birthday of King Oberon". The kings of England were traditionally likened to the sun (Oberon = William. Significantly, William and Mary were married on his birthday, 4 November.). The Chinese scene in the final masque is in homage to Queen Mary's famous collection of china. The garden shown above it and the exotic animals bring King William back into the picture and Hymen's song in praise of their marriage, plus the stage direction bringing (Mary's) china vases containing (William's) orange trees to the front of the stage complete the symbolism.
The music
Written as he approached the end of his brief career,
The Fairy-Queen contains some of Purcell's finest theatre music, as musicologists have agreed for generations. In particular,
Constant LambertLeonard Constant Lambert was a British composer and conductor.-Early life:Lambert was the son of Russian-born Australian painter George Lambert...
was a great admirer; from it he arranged a suite and in collaboration with Edward Dent arranged the work to form the then new Covent Garden opera company's first postwar production. It shows to excellent effect Purcell's complete mastery of the pungent English style of Baroque counterpoint, as well as displaying his absorption of Italian influences. Several arias such as "The Plaint", "Thrice happy lovers" and "Hark how the echoing air" have entered the discographic repertory of many singers outside their original context.
The orchestra for
The Fairy-Queen consists of two
recorderThe recorder is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes — whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle and ocarina. The recorder is end-blown and the mouth of the instrument is constricted by a wooden plug, known as a block or fipple...
s, two
oboeThe oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois", "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
s, two
trumpetThe trumpet is a musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BC...
s, kettledrums,
stringsA string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones. The most common string instruments in the string family are guitar, violin, viola,...
and
harpsichordA harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
continuo.
Performance history
Following Purcell's premature death, his opera
Dioclesian remained popular until well into the eighteenth century, but the score of
The Fairy-Queen was lost and only rediscovered early in the twentieth century. Other works like it fell into obscurity. Changing tastes were not the only reason for this; the voices employed had also become difficult to find. The list of singers below shows the frequent employment of the male alto, or
countertenor, in the semi-opera, a voice which, after Purcell, essentially vanished from the stage, probably due to the rise of Italian opera and the attendant castrati. After that Romantic opera emerged, with the attendant predominance of the
tenorThe tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
. Until the early music revival, the male alto survived mainly in the ecclesiastical tradition of all-male church choirs and twentieth-century American vocal quartets.
However, Purcell's music (and with it
The Fairy-Queen) was resuscitated by two related movements: a growing interest in Baroque music and the rise of the countertenor, led by pioneers such as
Alfred DellerAlfred Deller CBE , an English singer, was one of the main figures in popularizing the use of the countertenor voice in Renaissance and Baroque music....
and
Russell OberlinRussell Oberlin is an American countertenor who was a founding member of the New York Pro Musica Antiqua ensemble....
. The former movement led to performances of long-neglected composers such as Purcell,
John DowlandJohn Dowland was an English composer, singer, and lutenist. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as "Come, heavy sleep" , "Come again", "Flow my tears", "I saw my Lady weepe" and "In darkness let me dwell", but his instrumental music has undergone a major revival, and has been a...
,
John BlowJohn Blow was an English composer and organist. His pupils included William Croft and Henry Purcell.Blow was probably born at Newark-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire...
and even
George Frideric HandelGeorge Frideric Handel was a German-English Baroque composer, who is famous for his operas, oratorios, and concerti grossi. His life and music may justly be described as "cosmopolitan": he was born in Germany, trained in Italy, and spent most of his life in England...
, while the latter complemented it by providing a way of making such performances as authentic as possible as regards the original music and the composer's intentions (less true for Handel, where countertenors appear as castrati replacements). This has led to
The Fairy-Queen's increased popularity, and numerous recordings have been made, often using period instruments. The format of the work presents problems to modern directors, who must decide whether or not to present Purcell's music as part of the original play, which uncut is rather lengthy. Savage calculated a length of four hours. The decision to curtail the play is usually taken together with the resolution to modernize to such an extent that the cohesion between music, text and action sketched above is entirely lost, a criticism levelled at the
English National OperaEnglish National Opera is is an opera company based in London, England, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
's 1995 production directed by
David PountneyDavid Pountney is a British theatre and opera director. He has a reputation for staging rarely-performed operas.- Biography :Pountney was born in Oxford and educated at St John's College, Cambridge...
. The production was released on video the same year, and revived by the company in 2002.
In July 2009, two months before the 350th anniversary of Purcell's birth,
The Fairy-Queen was performed in a new edition, prepared for The Purcell Society by Bruce Wood and Andrew Pinnock, which restored the entire theatrical entertainment as well as the original
pitchPitch represents the perceived fundamental frequency of a sound. It is one of the three major auditory attributes of sounds along with loudness and timbre. When the actual fundamental frequency can be precisely determined through physical measurement, it may differ from the perceived pitch because...
used by Purcell. The performance by
Glyndebourne Festival OperaGlyndebourne Festival Opera is an opera festival held at Glyndebourne, a country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England.Under the supervision of the Christie family, the festival has been held annually since 1934, except in 1993, when the theatre was being rebuilt. The renovated theatre opened...
with the
Orchestra of the Age of EnlightenmentThe Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is a British period instrument orchestra. The OAE is a resident orchestra of the Southbank Centre, London, and associate orchestra at Glyndebourne Festival Opera...
conducted by
William ChristieWilliam Lincoln Christie is a American-born French conductor and founder and director of Les Arts Florissants....
was repeated later that month at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms.
Roles
The role of Mopsa was originally performed by a soprano; however, a later revision by Purcell stated that it was to be performed by "Mr. Pate in woman's habit", presumably to have a grotesque effect and highlight the refrain "No, no, no, no, no; no kissing at all" in the dialogue between Corydon and Mopsa. Also, it is not entirely clear what the word "
countertenorA countertenor is a male singing voice whose vocal range is equivalent to that of a contralto, mezzo-soprano, or a soprano, usually through use of falsetto, or more rarely the normal or modal voice. A pre-pubescent male who has this ability is called a treble...
" means in this context. The record is ambivalent as to whether Purcell (himself a countertenor) used a tenor with a particularly high range (though lighter at the top) and
tessituraIn music, the term tessitura generally describes the most musically acceptable and comfortable range for a given singer or, less frequently, musical instrument; the range in which a given type of voice presents its best-sounding texture or timbre...
(known sometimes as a
haute-contreThe haute-contre is a rare type of high tenor voice, predominant in French Baroque and Classical opera until the latter part of the eighteenth century...
, the descendants of the
contratenors alti of medieval
polyphonyIn music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....
) or a
falsettistThe term falsetto refers to the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous edges of the vocal cords, in whole or in part...
. It seems that throughout his career he used both. However, purely for reasons of dramatic verisimilitude, it is more likely than not that the
travestyEn travesti is a theatrical term referring to the portrayal of a character in a play, opera or ballet by a performer of the opposite sex. The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English classifies the term as "pseudo-French"...
role of Mopsa was taken by a falsettist, and the presence of a duet for two male altos ("Let the fifes and the clarions") makes it seem more probable that for this work falsettists were employed.
For a list of non-singing characters see A Midsummer Night's DreamA Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare. It was suggested by "The Knight's Tale" from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and written around 1594 to 1596...
, with the exception of Hippolyta. That character was cut by Purcell's librettist.
| Role |
Voice type |
Premiere cast,
2 May 1692
(Conductor: ) |
| Drunken Poet |
bass A bass is a type of classical male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second F below middle C to the E above middle C . Its tessitura, or...
|
|
| First Fairy |
soprano A soprano is a singing voice with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music...
|
|
| Second Fairy |
soprano |
|
| Night |
soprano |
|
| Mystery |
soprano |
|
| Secrecy |
countertenor A countertenor is a male singing voice whose vocal range is equivalent to that of a contralto, mezzo-soprano, or a soprano, usually through use of falsetto, or more rarely the normal or modal voice. A pre-pubescent male who has this ability is called a treble...
|
|
| Sleep |
bass |
|
| Corydon Corydon is a stock name for a shepherd in ancient Greek pastoral poems and fables, such as the one in Idyll 4 of the Syracusan poet Theocritus . The name was also used by the Latin poets Siculus and, more significantly, Virgil...
|
bass |
|
| Mopsa |
soprano A soprano is a singing voice with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music...
/countertenor |
|
NymphA nymph in Greek mythology is a female spirit typically associated with a particular location or landform. Other nymphs, always in the shape of young nubile maidens, were part of the retinue of a god, such as Dionysus, Hermes, or Pan, or a goddess, generally Artemis. Nymphs were the frequent target...
|
soprano |
|
| 3 Attendants to Oberon |
1 soprano, 2 countertenors |
|
| Phoebus Phoebus is the Latin form of Greek Phoibos "Shining-one", a byname used in classical mythology for either the god Apollo, or the god Helios, or the sun, generally....
|
tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
|
|
| Spring |
soprano |
|
| Summer |
countertenor |
|
| Autumn |
tenor |
|
| Winter |
bass |
|
| Juno Juno was an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counselor of the state. She is a daughter of Saturn and sister of the chief god Jupiter and the mother of Juventas, Mars, and Vulcan...
|
soprano |
|
| Chinese Man |
countertenor |
|
Chinese Woman, DaphneAccording to Greek myth, Apollo chased the nymph Daphne , daughter either of Peneus and Creusa in Thessaly, or of the river Ladon in Arcadia...
|
soprano |
|
| Hymen |
bass |
|
| Chorus: Fairies and Attendants. |
Synopsis
For the plot of the play see A Midsummer Night's DreamA Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare. It was suggested by "The Knight's Tale" from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and written around 1594 to 1596...
. Only a synopsis of scenes provided with music is given here.
Act 1
The first scene set to music occurs after Titania has left Oberon, following an argument over the ownership of a little Indian boy. Two of her fairies sing of the delights of the countryside ("Come, come, come, come, let us leave the town"). A drunken,
stutteringStuttering , also known as stammering , is a speech disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words or phrases, and involuntary silent pauses or blocks in which the stutterer is unable to produce sounds...
poet enters, singing "Fill up the bowl". The stuttering has led many to believe the scene is based on the habits of
Thomas d'UrfeyThomas D'Urfey , was an English writer and wit. He composed plays, songs, and poetry, in addition to writing jokes. He was an important innovator and contributor in the evolution of the Ballad opera....
. However, it may also be poking fun at
Elkanah SettleElkanah Settle , was an English poet and playwright.He was born at Dunstable, and entered Trinity College, Oxford, in 1666, but left without taking a degree. His first tragedy, Cambyses, King of Persia, was produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1667...
, who stuttered as well and was long thought to be the librettist, due to an error in his 1910 biography.
The fairies mock the drunken poet and drive him away.
Act 2
It begins after Oberon has ordered
PuckPuck, also known as Robin Goodfellow, is a character in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream that was based on the ancient figure in English mythology, also called Puck. Puck is a clever and mischievous elf and personifies the trickster or the wise knave...
to anoint the eyes of Demetrius with the love-juice. Titania and her fairies merrily revel ("Come all ye songsters of the sky"), and Night ("See, even Night"), Mystery ("I am come to lock all fast"), Secrecy ("One charming night") and Sleep ("Hush, no more, be silent all") lull them asleep and leave them to pleasant dreams.
Act 3
Titania has fallen in love with Bottom (now equipped with his ass' head), much to Oberon's gratification. A Nymph sings of the pleasures and torments of love ("If love's a sweet passion") and after several dances, Titania and Bottom are entertained by the foolish, loving banter of two haymakers, Corydon and Mopsa.
Act 4
It begins after Titania has been freed from her enchantment, commencing with a brief divertissement to celebrate Oberon's birthday ("Now the Night", and the abovementioned "Let the fifes and the clarions"), but for the most part it is a masque of the god Phoebus ("When the cruel winter") and the Four Seasons (Spring; "Thus, the ever grateful spring", Summer; "Here's the Summer", Autumn; "See my many coloured fields", and Winter; "Now Winter comes slowly").
Act 5
After Theseus has been told of the lovers's adventures in the wood, it begins with the goddess Juno singing an
epithalamiumEpithalamium specifically refers to a form of poem that is written for the bride. Or, specifically, written for the bride on the way to her marital chamber...
, "Thrice happy lovers", followed by a woman who sings the well–known "The Plaint" ("O let me weep"). A Chinese man and woman enter singing several songs about the joys of their world. ("Thus, the gloomy world", "Thus happy and free" and "Yes, Xansi"). Two other Chinese women summon Hymen, who sings in praise of married bliss, thus uniting the wedding theme of
A Midsummer Night's Dream, with the celebration of William and Mary's anniversary.
Selected recordings
- Alfred Deller
Alfred Deller CBE , an English singer, was one of the main figures in popularizing the use of the countertenor voice in Renaissance and Baroque music....
, The Deller Consort, Stour Music Chorus (2 CDA Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store sound recordings exclusively, but later it also allowed the preservation of other types of data. Audio CDs have been commercially available since October 1982...
s) — (1972) — Harmonia MundiHarmonia Mundi is an independent music record label founded in 1958 by Bernard Coutaz in Arles . The Latin phrase means "world harmony"....
- John Eliot Gardiner
Sir John Eliot Gardiner CBE FKC is an English conductor. He founded the Monteverdi Choir , the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique...
, The English Baroque SoloistsThe English Baroque Soloists is a chamber orchestra playing on period instruments, formed in 1978 by English conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Its repertoire comprises music from the early Baroque period to the Classical period...
The Monteverdi ChoirThe Monteverdi Choir was founded in 1964 by Sir John Eliot Gardiner for a performance of the Monteverdi Vespers in King's College Chapel, Cambridge. A specialist Baroque ensemble, the Choir has become famous for its stylistic conviction and extensive repertoire, encompassing music from the early...
, (2 CDs) — 1982 — Archiv Produktion 419 221-2
- William Christie
William Lincoln Christie is a American-born French conductor and founder and director of Les Arts Florissants....
, Les Arts FlorissantsLes Arts Florissants is a Baroque musical ensemble in residence at the Théâtre de Caen in Caen, France. The organization was founded by conductor William Christie in 1979. The ensemble derives its name from the 1685 opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. The organization consists of a chamber orchestra...
(2 CDs) — 1989 — Harmonia MundiHarmonia Mundi is an independent music record label founded in 1958 by Bernard Coutaz in Arles . The Latin phrase means "world harmony"....
HMC 90 1308/0
- Roger Norrington
Sir Roger Arthur Carver Norrington, CBE is a British conductor. He is the son of Sir Arthur Norrington and the brother of Humphrey Thomas Norrington.-Background:...
, The London Classical PlayersThe London Classical Players was a British orchestra that specialized in music following historically informed performance practices and orchestral performances on period musical instruments. Sir Roger Norrington founded the LCP in 1978. From 1978 to 1992, the concertmaster of the London...
, The Schütz Choir of London (2 CDs) — 1994 — EMI ClassicsThe EMI Group is a British music company. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major publishing arm- EMI Music Publishing- based in New York City...
7243 5 55234 2 6
- Ton Koopman
Ton Koopman is a conductor, organist and harpsichordist.Koopman had a "classical education" and then studied the organ , harpsichord and musicology in Amsterdam...
, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Chorus, (2 CDs) — 1994 — Erato 98507
- Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Nikolaus Harnoncourt is an Austrian conductor, particularly known for his historically informed performances of music from the classical era and earlier.-Biography:...
, Concentus Musicus WienConcentus Musicus Wien is a baroque music ensemble founded by Nikolaus Harnoncourt and his wife, Alice Harnoncourt, in 1953, which was largely responsible for the movement to play early music on period instruments. The original instrumentalists in the group came from the ranks of the Vienna...
, Arnold Schoenberg Chor (2 CDs) — 1995 — Teldec ClassicsTELDEC, or Teldec Record Service GmbH is a German record label in Hamburg, Germany. Today the label is a property of Warner Music Group.-History:...
4509-97684-2
See also
- List of compositions by Henry Purcell
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is an opera with music by Benjamin Britten and set to a libretto adapted by the composer and Peter Pears from William Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream...
(opera by Britten)
Sources
- Ashman, Mike, "Lost in Music." The Guardian, 7 May 2005 (online)
- Breen, Ed, "Purcell: The Fairy Queen", Musical Criticism, July 2009 (online)
- Burden, Michael. "Casting issues in the original production of Purcell's opera The Fairy-Queen " Music & Letters 84/4 (Nov.2003) oxfordjournals.org (subscription access)
- DeMarco, Laura. "The Fact of the Castrato and the Myth of the Countertenor." The Musical Quarterly 86 (2002), 174–185. oxfordjournals.org (subscription access). An argument against the use of countertenors as castrati replacements, but the relevance to this article comes in the more balanced discussion of countertenors as used by Purcell.
- Dent, Edward J. Foundations of English Opera, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1928.
- Holst, Imogen
Imogen Claire Holst, CBE was a British composer and conductor, and sole child of composer Gustav Holst.Imogen Holst was brought up in west London and educated at St Paul's Girls' School, where her father was director of music...
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The Independent is a British newspaper published by Tony O'Reilly's Independent News & Media. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily newspapers. The daily edition was named National...
, 21 October 1995 (online)
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Sir Curtis Alexander Price, KBE , was Principal of the Royal Academy of Music from 1995 to 2008 and Professor of Music in the University of London....
. "The Fairy-Queen", Grove Music OnlineThe Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopaedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is the largest single reference work on Western music. The Dictionary has gone through several editions since the 19th century and...
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The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopaedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is the largest single reference work on Western music. The Dictionary has gone through several editions since the 19th century and...
, ed. L. Macy (accessed July 25, 2006), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
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