Baroquestock Festival
Purcell: King Arthur
Istante Collective, Matthew Brown, Natalie Coury
Heath Street Baptist Church, Hampstead. 10 May 2016

Under the title of “Possible Planets, Musical Spheres”, the latest annual Baroquestock Festival has been bringing the crowds into Hampstead’s homely Heath Street Baptist Church, notably for two performances of Purcell’s King Arthur. The original was first performed in May 1691 in the form of the very English Restoration genre of semi-opera, combining a spoken play with a series of musical masques at intervals during the play, reflecting aspects of the play, but usually without any of the principal roles of the play. Although it is usually performed just as a musical suite, this innovative production included enough elements of the spoken text and action to get a feel of a 17th century performance, aided by some impressive acting from the five singers, and real acting and narration from Christopher Hunter and dance from Tamra Hinson.

Saxons

The music comprises the usual Overture and Act tunes, specified mood pieces related to the action of each masque and, notably, several songs that have entered the wider musical repertoire. The five-act play is set around various battles between Saxons and Britons, led respectively by Oswald and Arthur, underlaid by a complex love story between the two and Emmeline, the blind daughter of the Duke of Cornwall. In Act 1, a Saxon ritual is portrayed with homage to Woden, Thor, and Freya before an offstage battle and a British song of triumph, Come if you dare. Elements of the battle continue into Act 2, starting with the delightfully staged sequence Hither this way, followed by an equally impressive entertainment by a “Crew of Kentish Lads and Lasses”.

Hither this way . . .

Act 3 includes the famous Frost Scene, with the Cold Genius shivering his way out of sleep. Act 5 has the concluding celebratory masque, with its famous anthem, Fairest Isle. The 12 instrumentalists of the Istante Collective were gathered to the left of the stage, and collectivelt produces an excellent realisation of the score, directed from the harpsichord by Matthew Brown.

Istante Collective

With only five singers, there was much multi-tasking of roles, roughly allocated as follows:

Isabelle Haile – Philidel, Syren, Venus
Mariana Rodrigues – Cupid, Nymph, Syren
Hera Protopapas – Saxon Priest,
Max Robbins – Saxon Priest, a Shepherd, a Swain
Benjamin Schilperoort – Saxon Priest, Cold Genius, Aeolu

together with group appearences as Choruses of Saxons, Britons, Fairies, Shepherds, Kentish lads, Cold People, Swains, and Fishermen.

This was another very successful event from the imaginative Baroquestock and their resident orchestra, the Istante Collective. Over the years, they have built an enviable audience base, helped perhaps by their refreshments.