Purcell's The Fairy Queen

Available for over a year

Lucie Skeaping presents a programme exploring Purcell's semi-opera, The Fairy Queen, based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Purcell did not set any of Shakespeare's original text, and instead added self-contained masques in each of the acts, which include some of Purcell's finest music. Lucie plays musical extracts from each of the masques from various recordings, directed by Ton Koopman, Roger Norrington, Harry Christophers and Nikolaus Harnoncourt.