Henry Purcell | MEMETERIA by Thomas May

February 10, 2023 • 5:53 pm Comments Off on Purcell’s King Arthur

Purcell’s King Arthur

Juilliard415 is teaming up with students from the Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts and Juilliard Drama to give a rare performance of a new version of Henry Purcell’s “semi-opera” King Arthur at Alice Tully Hall on Saturday 11 February at 7.30pm NYC time. Lionel Meunier directs this interdisciplinary collaboration.

More background in my program essay here. .

You can watch a livestream here — note that this performance won’t be available to stream afterward on demand.

Filed under: early music, Henry Purcell, Juilliard

February 22, 2019 • 1:04 pm Comments Off on Dido and Aeneas at Juilliard

Dido and Aeneas at Juilliard

Here’s my program essay for Juilliard Opera’s production of Dido and Aeneas at the Willson Theater, directed by Mary Birnbaum and led by Avi Stein, with choreography by Claudia Schreier. Closes tomorrow.

“Even this little boarding-school opera is full of [Purcell’s] spirit, his
freshness, his dramatic expression, and his unapproached art of setting
English speech to music.” This was the verdict that Cornetto di Basso (aka
George Bernard Shaw, using his pen name as a music critic) reached when
covering an otherwise less-than-thrilling performance of Dido and Aeneas
in 1889. Though two centuries old by then, the score had only first been
published in 1841; the opera would not be performed outside England until
1895, when the bicentennial of Henry Purcell’s death stimulated curiosity
about his work.

continue

Filed under: Henry Purcell, Juilliard