New: Purcell’s THE FAIRY QUEEN at SF Conservatory of Music
Henry Purcell died in 1695 at the early age of 36 just three years after the premiere of his semi-opera The Fairy Queen, which in turn came only a year after the great success of his other noteworthy works in this genre, Dioclesian and King Arthur. The genre itself developed in England out of the popular court masques. Semi-operas combined spoken dialogue, acting, instrumental music, singing, and dance. The libretto for The Fairy Queen, by an anonymous author, offers a heavily abridged version of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. This material, usually presented in spoken dialogue, was absent in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s concert version of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, which included all the music Purcell composed for the 1692 premiere as well as the music he added for the 1693 revival. None of the familiar characters from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream have singing roles, so the singing is provided by nymphs, fairies and allegorical figures. I attended on Saturday afternoon, March 12, the second of two performances of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen at San Francisco Conservatory of Music. -more-