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The Fairy Queen, opera by Henry Purcell, by Léa César, soprano and conductor, the choir trainees, Raphaëlle Dubois, actress, the trainees of the theater workshop Ensemble baroques-graffiti
At the end of the 17th century, Henry Purcell composed 42 scores to accompany plays. Among them, The Fairy Queen, written in 1692, combines Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with masques, a name used to describe musical interludes combining music, song, ballet and grandiose scenography. In each of the masques, the spoken roles were assigned to the main characters, such as Titiana, Oberon and Puck, and the sung and danced roles to the many secondary characters.
The result was a total spectacle, festive and dazzling, albeit devoid of narrative verisimilitude. Purcell’s music, however, is exquisitely delicate and inexhaustibly inventive. Its function is to depict nature and its dreamlike, allegorical universe, through grotesque characters and supernatural figures evoking Night, Secret, Mystery, Sleep and the four seasons, but also to convey, in parodic form, the range of amorous feelings. This typically English genre of semi-opera was extremely popular in Purcell’s day. It was not until Handel’s arrival in London twenty years later that the opera was fully sung.
In partnership with the association pour la sauvegarde du patrimoine de Clumanc.
Free of charge.