A charming evening of mischief, magic and merriment
Henry Purcell’s semi-opera The Fairy Queen, based loosely on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, was performed at the Cadogan Hall on September 25th as part of the ‘Choral at Cadogan 2024’ programme. The music was performed by The Sixteen, directed by Christophers, and were accompanied by guest singers Matthew Brook (baritone/drunken poet/ Coridon) and Robin Blaze (alto/Mopsa), as well as several choir sopranos. Purcell’s music is accompanied by narrator Antonia Christophers, actress and co-founder of theatre company Box Tale Soup, with the script specially written by Jeremy Sams.
As Antonia points out with good humour, this is a rather pared back production: we are told to imagine the rich and vibrant forest scenery, the actors, dancers and scene changes. The script worked well, and was performed with vivacity and wit by Antonia Christophers (narrator-cum-Titania). And yet, despite Christophers’ insistence that Purcell’s music can tell the story on its own (I do not disagree), I found myself longing to see this work staged as it was for its premiere at the Dorset Garden Theatre in 1692: with no expense spared.
Brook and Blaze’s ‘scenes’ were easily the highlights of the performance, partly because these parts were more dramatised. Most of the solos consisted simply of singers stepping forward to the front of the stage, before falling back into line. The elements of pantomime, when they happened, made it far easier to engage with the story unfolding on stage and in the music. They were also, of course, brilliantly comedic.
I left feeling that my craving for narrative detail was not quite satiated, and that following the story required audience members to be both intimately familiar with Shakespeare’s work, and the five masques that make up Purcell’s score. Nevertheless, Antonia makes a riveting, magisterial Titania, and the foregrounding of her character through Sams’ script brought a wonderfully amusing new perspective to this classic tale.
This was an astutely contextualised and well-executed performance. I can find little fault beyond my own personal preference, and a lack of familiarity with Christophers’ beloved Purcell.