King Arthur

by Henry Purcell

seen semi-staged at the Barbican Hall on 2 October 2017

Richard Egarr directed the Academy of Ancient Music and its choir, with Ray Fearon as the narrator and six soloists, in a performance of Purcell's music for this piece interspersed with poems reflecting ideas of nationhood, war, political dissension, and so forth, in a performance designed to be 'King Arthur in the Age of Brexit'. Dryden's text and story (which form the spoken part of the 'semi opera') are totally abandoned, though the idea of a conflict (originally between Britons and Saxons) is preserved in the two groups of the chorus who represent, broadly speaking, Leavers and Remainers in the Brexit referendum and its aftermath.

The staging is sparse, with pages on two clipboards giving the scene - for example, 'Boys and Girls: a nightclub' or 'Left and Right: a polling station' and so forth - and all the participants in casual modern dress (including the orchestral players, prominent on the stage). The result is that we are presented visually with distinct groupings, while the poetry spoken raises various political and social issues, and the music sung my have reference to the original context (offerings to Woden) or may be more general (a harvest song, or the famous Frost song).

The poetry seemed largely apposite, the music is wonderful (though of course it may well be an acquired taste) and was very well played and sung; but the overall effect was somewhat diffuse. There was no story; everything was rumination, an invitation to listen to some well-known set pieces - the great exhortations from Henry V jostling with T.S.Eliot's The Hollow Men - and some lesser known but pertinent poems from such as Shelley, Blake, Ali Smith (very Brexit-oriented) and others, and to ponder their significance in the current political climate. 

The person next to me found the music wonderful but everything else appallingly pretentious. I would not go so far; it was intriguing, but not absolutely successful since all the pieces did not really cohere. Even though Dryden's play may be too far removed from what anyone would now expect of a pice about King Arthur, we still I think want some story, not just a collection of thoughts, when we go to see something called an opera.