The Fairy Queen

Purcell The Fairy Queen opera to anonymous libretto. Directed 2009 by Jonathan Kent at Glyndebourne. Stars as actors Joseph Millson, Sally Dexter, Jotham Annan, Desmond Barrit, Robert Burt, Jack Chissick, Paul McCleary, Brian Pettifer, Roger Sloman, Taliesin Knight, Terrence Hardiman, William Gaunt, Susannah Wise, Helen Bradbury, Oliver Kieran Jones, and Oliver Le Sueur. Singing stars are Claire Debono, Anna Devin, Desmond Barrit, Carolyn Sampson, Ed Lyon, Andrew Foster-Williams, Robert Burt, Sean Clayton, Adrian Ward, Lukas Kargl, Lucy Crowe, Helen-Jane Howells, Miriam Allan, Rachel Redmond, and John Mackenzie. Dancing stars are Laura Caldow, Nuni Campos, Tommy Franzén, Caroline Lynn, Omar Gordon, Anthony Kurt-Gabel, Maurizio Montis, and Sarah Storer. Designs by Paul Brown; lighting by Mark Henderson; choreography by Kim Brandstrup; TV direction by François Roussillon. William Christie conducts The Glyndebourne Chorus (Assistant Chorus Master Oliver Gooch) and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Leader Alison Bury). Released  2010,  disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio. Grade: B

In 1590 Edmund Spenser finished The Faerie Queen. This is a long epic poem glorifying Queen Elizabeth I and has noting to do with our subject Fairy-Queen except to have a confusingly similar name. About 6 years later, Shakespeare finished A Midsummer Night's Dream, a comedy about Titania, the tiny queen of the fairies. About 100 years after that, Henry Purcell wrote in 1692 The Fairy-Queen (with a hyphen in the name), which is a "semi-opera" about Shakespeare's Titania. It's called a semi-opera because the basic framework consists of Shakespeare's familiar Midsummer Night's Dream story of the mixed-up lovers, the war between Titania and Oberon, and the misadventures of the "rude mechanicals" --- all spoken as in a play. Purcell then added musical and dance numbers that range from chaste classical allegory to slapstick silly slightly salacious sex. Three years later in 1695, Purcell died. His The Fairy-Queen was promptly lost and was basically unknown for more than 200 years.

The Fairy-Queen was revived early in the twentieth century as a concert piece, and there are a number of CDs available today of the music. But there have been, it seems, only two important productions of the semi-opera itself since Purcell's death, and this show is the later and better regarded of the two. So this HDVD is an important document for lovers of baroque opera and fans of Henry Purcell.

Gramophone magazine rated this as the best DVD/HDVD published  in 2010. A production of The Fairy Queen (now no hyphen in the name) is a director's dreams since the score is sketchy and has room for anything the law will allow. Gramophone magazine seemed to like it because it's an unusual event and graced with many fine singers and dancers performing in interesting sets. I found the whole thing a bit excessive and uneven.

If you like early music, current-day frantic British comedy, or Shakespeare you may enjoy this production. Otherwise, you probably will be bewildered. Caution about children: show features totally gratuitous mass orgy of copulating pink bunny rabbits.