Investing in the magic of Purcell’s music: The Fairy Queen from The Sixteen at Cadogan Hall

Dorset Garden Theatre in 1673 where Purcell’s The Fairy Queen premiered

Purcell: The Fairy Queen; Antonia Christophers, Matthew Brook, Robin Blaze, Katy Hill, Alexandra Kidgell, Charlotte Mobbs, Mark Dobell, Oscar Golden Lee,, Ben Davies, The Sixteen, Harry Christophers; Cadogan Hall
Reviewed 25 September 2024

Focusing on the music, a stylish and engaging performance that drew us into Purcell’s magical world, aided by a delightful narration

After the performance of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen with Les Arts Florissants and Mourad Merzouki’s Companie Käfig at the BBC Proms [see my review] where Purcell’s music seemed to take second place to the virtuosic hip-hop-inspired dance, it was a pleasure to reencounter the work in an entirely different and more sympathetic musical context.

On Wednesday 25 September 2024, Harry Christophers and The Sixteen presented Purcell’s The Fairy Queen at Cadogan Hall as part of Choral at Cadogan 2024. The soloists consisted of two visitors, countertenor Robin Blaze and baritone Matthew Brook, along with six members of the choir sopranos Katy Hill, Alexandra Kidgell, and Charlotte Mobbs, tenors Mark Dobell and Oscar Golden Lee, and baritone Ben Davies. The whole was drawn together using a narration by Jeremy Sams, performed by the actor Antonia Christophers, who is co-founder and co-artistic director of the theatre company, Box Tale Soup.

We had an orchestra of 21 and a choir of 18 (including those singing solo roles), so this was a generously proportioned performance. The choir remained stationery and for much of the ‘action’ the soloists simply stepped forward and retreated, but some episodes, notably the Drunken Poet (Matthew Brook with Charlotte Mobbs and Katy Hill), and Coridon and Mopsa (Matthew Brook and Robin Blaze), were more dramatised. What drew everything together was the delightful narrative. Antonia Christophers (who has in fact played Titania in the play) presented a slightly amused narrator cum Titania who repeatedly broke the fourth wall to mix descriptions of what should have been on stage with lamentations about the present lack of scenery, staging and actors. The result could have been horribly arch, but despite some rather false-sounding amplification, Antonia Christophers made the whole extremely engaging and helped to bind the disparate elements together.

The advantage of the format was the the purely instrumental numbers, the First Musick, the Second Music, the various act tunes, the Symphony in Act Four and the Prelude in Act Five were just that, instrumental thus allowing us to enjoy the variety of Purcell’s music without worrying about what the director had created to accompany them. Harry Christophers kept speeds quite brisk and drew a wonderful amount of colour and movement from the instruments. Purcell achieves miracles of colour and timbre with his small band and Christophers really leaned into this. Once thing noticeable about the whole performance, instruments and singers, was the careful attention to articulation throughout the piece.

Following an eager duet from Alexandra Kidgell and Ben Davies, we had the delightful, but not too broad comedy of the Scene with the Drunken Poet with Matthew Brook managing to make it musical and funny, with great support from Charlotte Mobbs and Katy Hill. Act Two features the masque with Night, Mystery, Secrecy and Sleep. In quick succession there were recorders, trumpets and hauntingly eerie strings alongside a fine sequence of solos first Oscar Golden Lee’s ingratiating lyric tenor and Charlotte Mobbs brightly engaging soprano, then Alexandra Kidgell’s fragile Nigh, Katy Hill’s graceful Mystery, Robin Blaze’s lightly pointed Secrecy and Matthew Brook’s magical performance a Sleep.

Act Three is more diverse, and we began with Kidgell’s ardent soprano solo and a chorus sung with some delicacy, then we could imagine the wondrous scenic transformations as Christophers and the instrumental ensemble brought out the magic of Purcell’s music. Blaze and Brook made Coridon and Mopsa a comic turn, musical yet sufficiently pantomimic broad to work. 

In Act Four, Mark Dobell made a nicely swaggering Phoebus, preceded by terrific trumpets and drums in the Symphony. This leads into the four seasons, first a wonderfully grand chorus then Mobbs as an engaging Spring, Blaze giving Summer a light bounce, Dobell as a melancholy Autumn, and Brook giving us a masterclass with his bleak and intense Winter. Finally, Act Five with Hill as a lightly intimate Juno followed by Kidgell’s wonderfully poignant account of the Plaint. Mobbs, Kidgell and Blaze were the Chinese people, lightly engaging and often touching with the scene ending with Matthew Brook’s wonderfully grand hymen. But then the chaconne, where the music really took over and a final chorus where I notice Antonia Christophers singing too.

The performance lacked the virtuoso theatricality of some. All three sopranos had quite light voices and the odd solo lacked strong presence, but overall this was a marvellously engaging account of a tricky work. Christophers and the whole team were clearly invested in the magic of Purcell’s music. We can lament that the particular situation in late 16th century London theatre meant that fully sung opera was not a possibility, but Purcell clearly relished the distinctive challenge of semi-opera and by focusing principally on the music itself, Harry Christophers and his performers drew us in, aided by Antonia
Christophers delightful narration.