Our Purcell Project continues with a concert performance of The Indian Queen, the last of Purcell’s dramatic operas. He died before completing it and the Act V wedding masque had to be set by his brother Daniel. For this performance we have replaced Daniel’s rather pedestrian music with Henry’s sparkling comic Masque of Cupid and Bacchus for Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens, also written in 1695. The Indian Queen concerns love and warfare in a fantasy South America, with the Aztecs of Mexico in conflict with the Incas of Peru. It has some of Purcell’s finest theatrical music, including the comic Masque of Fame and Envy, the great invocation ‘Ye twice ten hundred deities’ and the evergreen ‘I attempt from love’s sickness to fly’. The specially devised script by Richard Andrews sets the scene, links the musical numbers and evokes the lost world of the Restoration theatre.

Supported by the SVF Purcell Project Fund

Tickets:
£20 reserved (SOLD OUT)
£15 unreserved
(half-price for those under 30)
Book tickets here