Our Purcell Project continues with a concert performance of The Fairy Queen, the third of Henry Purcell’s dramatic operas, mixing speech, music – and originally also with dancing and elaborate scenic effects. A Restoration adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it ranges from low comedy (a stuttering drunken poet and the rustic lovers Coridon and Mopsa), through the spectacular Masque of the Four Seasons, to the sublime (‘If love’s a sweet passion’) and the mysterious and etherial Masque of Sleep). The specially devised script by Richard Andrews sets the scene, links the musical numbers and evokes the lost world of the Restoration Theatre.

Peter Holman has delighted SVF audiences for many years with authoritative performances of the music of Henry Purcell. He is an acknowledged expert on the composer.

Supported by the SVF Purcell Project Fund

Tickets: £20 (£15 unreserved), half-price for those under 30

BOOKING OPENS 12 JUNE