22 June 2013
St Michael le Belfrey, York
7.30 pm ends (c.10 pm)
Tickets £18 (£16)
Purcell - Fairy Queen
Titania awakes to see Bottom as a donkey in this illustration by Arthur Rackham.
with Yorkshire Baroque Soloists
Purcell’s 1690 semi-opera, Fairy Queen, is among his greatest compositions, which remained popular well into the 18th century although seldom heard complete. Certainly it contains some of his best-known and spectacular music with many solos, dialogues, choruses and a colourful orchestra of oboes, recorders, trumpets and strings. Apart from the humorous Scene of the Drunken Poet and that between Coridon and Mopsa, the longest and most important sequence of the semi-opera is the great final masque, performed to celebrate King Oberon’s birthday.
In this entertaining performance the musical items are linked by a brilliant (and entertaining) narration specially prepared by Andrew Pinnock, secretary of the Purcell Society and a regular collaborator with YBC and YBS in this repertoire.
