A pleasant efficiency of The Fairy Queen by the Armonico Consort and Gamers in Thaxted – Seen and Heard Worldwide

United Kingdom Thaxted Competition 2024 [3] – Purcell, The Fairy Queen, Z 629: Oz Clarke (narrator), Eloise Irving, Hannah Fraser Mackenzie, Laura Moretto (sopranos), William Towers (alto), Matthew Pochin (tenor), Robert Davies (bass), Armonico Consort & Baroque Gamers / Christopher Monks (harpsichord / director). Thaxted Parish Church, 6.7.2024. (CC)

The Thaxted ComPetition continues with a uncommon outing for Purcell’s music for The Fairy Queen. First carried out in 1692, this can be a transforming of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Evening’s Dream. The creator of the libretto just isn’t identified, however conjecture has it that it could be the actor and theatre supervisor Thomas Batterton (1635-1710).

After attending a efficiency of Errolyn Wallen’s Dido’s Ghost in Blackheath a number of days beforehand (which features a efficiency of Purcell’s Dido, morphing into and away from Wallen’s soundworld), it was an unalloyed delight to listen to a night of pure Purcell. The historical past of The Fairy Queen is a chequered one: the rating was misplaced after its premiere at The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. It remained hidden (regardless of a reward for its return!) till it was discovered within the library of the Royal Academy of Music centuries later, It was revealed solely in 1903 (by The Purcell Society).The hyperlink to Thaxted is that the primary fashionable efficiency of The Fairy Queen, a decade after that publication, was organised by Gustav Holst.

The choice to make use of a narrator was a advantageous one, particularly as the duty fell to Oz Clarke, OBE, a tv persona who is understood for his experience within the subject of wine. And but previous to his fame, he was a treble at Canterbury and sang with Schola Cantorum and the Monteverdi Choir, He enjoys a long-standing relationship with the Armonico Live performance; his supply of speech was certainly positively Shakespearean, all the time clarion clear and brilliantly modulated (he additionally doubled as actor when required by the plot).

We heard William Towers’s shortened model of The Fairy Queen, but it surely felt properly full inside itself, and included sequences of Evening (‘See, even Evening’), Thriller, Secrecy and Sleep and, later, the 4 Seasons as a part of the celebrations for Oberon’s birthday within the third Masque. The soloists collectively shaped the ‘refrain’ (ending the primary a part of the live performance – the top of Masque II – dealing with the viewers holding tealights, vocally superbly balanced). Speaking of stability, Christopher Monks’s instrumental distribution felt good {single strings, two trumpets, timpani, and harpsichord, with some use of the huge area of the church for trumpet dialogues, fantastically performed).

Whereas the rating is filled with brief numbers, that is undoubtedly a case of the entire is larger than the sum of its elements, particularly when one quantity – ‘Hush, no extra’ – has the flexibility to cease time (fantastically delivered by Robert Davies): it’s answered by a ‘refrain’ and appears reminiscent, in its use of silence in between phrases, of the ultimate refrain, ‘With dropping wings’, of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas). Towers’s adaptation of the accessible materials flowed properly; the distribution between soloists works properly, too. And to have three wonderful (and properly differentiated) sopranos was advantageous ‘casting’: Eloise Irving and Hannah Fraser Mackenzie had the most important share. Fraser Mackenzie excelled within the gossamer-textured ‘See, even Evening Herself is right here’, splendidly pure of voice, expressive of line whereas Purcell’s heavenly counterpoint slowly unravelled beneath. A second when time stopped. She was complemented all through by Eloise Irving, whose sturdy, characterful soprano was each inch Fraser Mackenzie’s equal.

William Towers sang alto (and Puck) with nice power with Matthew Pochin a powerful tenor. The sense of fashion all through was splendid. All collectively, this was a brief however satisfying night – actually, the church ought to have been full. Somebody tells me there was some soccer on the tv, which can account for some absence. Their loss: Purcell’s timeless music triumphed within the pleasant efficiency of The Fairy Queen by the Armonico Consort and Gamers.

Colin Clarke