Glyndebourne wins BBC Music Magazine acclaim

Glyndebourne Opera House this week won the prize of BBC Music Magazine DVD 2010 for their 2009 production of Henry Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, a semi-opera loosely based on William Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’.

The production staged by Jonathan Kent, former actor and now theatre and opera director, enveloped all the fantastical aspects that the work is known for: dancing swans, dryads, Chinese gardens and Gods.

The arc of the narrative follows two lovers and their adventure through a dark wood, during which we see them mature towards marriage: what makes it a semi-opera is the amount of text as opposed to music.

The 2009 production (which marked the 350th anniversary of Purcell’s birth) was conducted by William Christie, the acclaimed American harpsichordist, conductor, musicologist and teacher, overseeing the period instruments of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightment.

It was the first time that it had been performed at Glyndebourne, who described it as a “joyous celebration of Englishness, in all its rich eccentricity”.

Glyndebourne Festival begins on May 21 of this year, running through to August 28. Glyndebourne on Tour begins in October.

The Fairy Queen is available to buy and will be shown in cinemas this spring, including Lewes Cinema on May 15.