Fairy style for the Fairest Isle: King Arthur at Temple Church

Purcell wrote just one opera, Dido and Aeneas, which in his famous phrase was “musick’d throughout in the Italian manner”. His other stage works were Restoration-style “semi-operas” in which a company of actors performed the spoken play, but did not sing. Purcell added music for a separate set of singers and dancers. King Arthur is of this type, but had the advantage of being planned as a semi-opera from the start, being an original work by John Dryden, rather than an adaptation. Thus Dryden could write scenes for the juxtaposed music that made them allegorical in relation to the drama, and even include two characters who both act and sing. No Camelot here, as we are concerned with the Christian Arthur, King of the Britons, and the rescue of his fiancée, the blind Princess Emmeline, from Pagan Saxon King Oswald of Kent and its Woden-worshippers. Fairytale elements link both the speech and the song of this semi-opera.

So what to do with the piece in the 21st century? Given the trouble Dryden took to create an integrated work, to extract Purcell’s’ music and ignore the rest is regrettable. But a stage production of the full text of drama and music would make for a long evening.

The Early Opera Company’s solution for these two concert performances was to play and sing the Purcell entire, and represent the absent drama with a spoken narration written by Thomas Guthrie, spoken by Lindsay Duncan. This worked well enough, although some of the text was hard to hear, whether due to the mic setting, loudspeaker locations, or Lindsay Duncan’s occasional sotto voce.

Temple Church has its challenges, especially when many seats close to the action with good sightlines carry reserve stickers. The stalls are all like choir stalls, facing each other across the nave. There are the usual acoustical benefits and downsides of ecclesiastical buildings, adding bloom and resonance, impairing clarity of instrumental detail and singers’ diction. Conductor Christian Curnyn, founder and Artistic Director of the Early Opera Company, is very experienced – next year sees the 30th anniversary of this invaluable institution – and seemed adept at finding the right tempo and volume for each number, to work best in this acoustic. His players, some minor mishaps from that perilous instrument the Baroque trumpet aside, were excellent.

The singers too were all accomplished and idiomatic – had they been subjects of Charles II we might have had all-sung opera sooner in these lands. Rowan Pierce made much of that acceptable instance of British exceptionalism, “Fairest isle, all isles excelling”, and took pains with its diction. Mhairi Lawson offered delightful melisma as Cupid, and the two sopranos sounded well together as the Two Sirens of Act 4. 

Samuel Boden was impressively flexible in “I call you all to Woden’s Hall”, and in the trio “For folded flocks” – a pastoral version of exceptionalism this time (“Though Jason’s fleece was fam’d of old/British wool is growing gold”). My notes wrongly called the other tenor Nick Pritchard, (my “Premium Seat” afforded no sight of the performers), but he was indisposed and replaced by James Way, but announced only at the interval. He acquitted himself very well under those circumstances. Edward Grint’s imposing bass-baritone offered a very chilly Frost scene and a secure bottom line to the other four singers in the choral numbers. Always worth catching a good account of major Purcell – but get there tonight at 18:30 sharp for a reasonable seat!