The Fairy Queen – review

Opera The Fairy Queen Queen Elizabeth Hall, London ∂∂∂∂∂ A sequence of masques written to accompany an anonymous adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Purcell's The Fairy Queen is arguably the most malleable of theatre scores. Done complete, spoken text and all, it can be an elating spectacle. Most productions, however, jettison the dialogue and flesh out some sort of narrative from its disparate numbers. The latest version, from Philip Pickett, conductor of the New London Consort, and director Mauricio García Lozano, follows suit, though it courts controversy by refusing to base its plot on A Midsummer Night's Dream. Instead, Pickett and Lozano whisk their modern-dress cast of nine singers and five circus artists off to Arcadia, where hangups disappear as various erotic configurations form. The singers embody types from a contemporary morality play, such as an uptight career girl (Joanne Lunn), a closeted gay teacher (Tim Travers-Brown) and a handsome-if-unreliable idler (Ed Lyon). Among the circus troupe we find both the exquisite magic of juggler José Triguero Delgado and the darker, altogether more troubling emotional realities of embattled athletes Kaveh Rahnama and Lauren Hendry. At its best, it has something of the muted optimism of late Shakespeare, though there are also moments when it threatens to mutate into glib new age group therapy. But it's done with breathtaking sincerity, while the music carries you away, as it always does. Lunn sounds ravishing, Lyon looks set to become baroque music's new heartthrob, and Pickett conducts with superb finesse and warmth.