thu 28/03/2024

King Arthur, Spitalfields Music | reviews, news & interviews

King Arthur, Spitalfields Music

King Arthur, Spitalfields Music

Purcell's semi-opera is anything but half-hearted at the Spitalfields Festival

It’s not often that a performance of Purcell’s King Arthur requires its entire cast of singers to strip down to very tight Union Jack boxer shorts. It’s not often either that the audience find themselves actively encouraged to talk over the music, yet both were unexpectedly and riotously true last night at the Spitalfields Festival. Pairing Baroque big-hitters The English Concert and I Fagiolini, there was nothing half-hearted about this semi-staging of Purcell’s semi-opera. It promised much and delivered more, and while those listening live on Radio 3 might have enjoyed better textural balance, they can’t have had nearly as much fun as the sell-out crowd sweltering away in Shoreditch Church.

“Think about something pertaining to the 17th century and then talk about it,” exhorted I Fagiolini’s exuberant musical director Robert Hollingworth (pictured below left), educating us in the authentic practice of having a musical preamble to the main event, over which listeners would continue their chatter. Talk we dutifully did, but there was no mistaking the beginning of proceedings proper as our speaker and poetic compere for the evening Kit Hesketh Harvey strode down the central aisle, a sequinned waistcoat jazzing up his otherwise period ensemble.

“…though as brevity is the soul of wit, we’ve had to lose the Dryden bit”. Jettisoning John Dryden’s original text, we were offered instead a new rhyming narration by children’s author Timothy Knapman in satirical and contemporary vein. Sketching in the bones of the plot, which bears little relationship to the musical action, the pithy couplets reflected the same anachronistic naughtiness with which Ko-Ko’s Little List so delights Mikado audiences, complete with super-injunctions and the memorable rhyming of “Covent Garden” with “buttock ‘arden”.

matthewlongI’ve had some of my most thrilling evenings of early music in the company of I Fagiolini; their dramatically engaged approach to the secular repertoire of this sacred-dominated period gives the lie to anyone who speaks of the prim character of English performers. Framed in the comedy of Knapman’s text and buoyed by the crisp swagger of The English Concert under Hollingworth’s direction, they flourished.

Standing out in a characteristically strong line-up was Matthew Long (pictured right), whose bright-toned tenor is only matched for clarity by his diction. His “Come if you dare” rang out like a challenge to all his colleagues, and its muscular musicality was sustained (if occasionally a little too loudly in ensembles) throughout to glorious effect, giving the brass a run for their money.

While I suspect both sopranos benefited in broadcast from the close-set microphones, the well-blended tones of Julia Doyle and Emma Tring provided appropriately languorous sirens and Doyle’s Cupid was as pure of voice as it was pert of delivery. Their Shepherdesses however lacked the backbiting edge that should surely colour this playful musical dig at the institution of marriage. Elegant support was offered by the rest of the ensemble, with only Charles Gibbs’s Cold Genius disappointing – insufficiently lovely to be forgiven for not being terribly funny.

Robert-HollingworthAs well as the movement offered by Thomas Guthrie’s semi-staged action, and some suitably patriotic costume changes, drama was further heightened by an array of accents (heavy German for the opening pagan rites, broad West Country for Act V’s Comus chorus, which came complete with a series of newly penned comic verses), a device that did occasionally interfere with the vocal tone. But while I Fagiolini were happy to balance musicianship with a certain playfulness, The English Concert were all business. Even with the distractions of staging it was all I could do to keep my eyes off leader Nadja Zweiner, whose rhythmically charged bowing – never far from a dance – is a delight. Other instrumental distractions came in the form of the pared-down orchestral Symphony of Act V, with its beautifully balanced brass and woodwind textures.

There’s an intent and a precision to the music-making of both The English Concert and I Fagiolini that sets them apart from their rivals. Their meticulous attention to detail could result in fussiness, but paradoxically creates a kind of freedom – the beautiful anarchy that can only come from absolute control. As a listener it’s exhilarating to be invited to lose oneself in such expertly crafted fantasy, though the danger of never wanting to emerge is a real one. This may have been a one-night-only show, but I have no intention of quitting Purcell’s magic forests for at least another week.

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