Events
“Close your eyes and it's close to time travel.” The Independent on Sunday
Forthcoming Events
Purcell's The Fairy Queen
Noda BCVS, Sion, Les Riches Heures de Valère
9 November 2025, 5:00pm
Gabrieli Consort & Players
Paul McCreesh Artistic Director
Charlotte Bowden, Jessica Cale, Anna Dennis and Rowan Pierce Sopranos
Jeremy Budd, Hugo Hymas and Robert Murray Tenors
Marcus Farnsworth and Ashley Riches Baritone/Bass
Gabrieli Consort & Players perform Purcell’s Fairy Queen at Les Riches Heures de Valère in November 2025.
A semi-opera in 5 acts composed in 1692 (first performed on May 2 at the Dorset Garden Theatre in London), The Fairy Queen is an anonymous adaptation of the famous play by William Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night’s Dream).
The libretto intertwines and then resolves three love intrigues: one between the Fairy Queen Titania and her husband Oberon, one involving two couples of young Athenian lovers (Lysander, Helena, Demetrius and Hermia) and a comic exercise in “theatre on the theatre” based on the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe.
Gabrieli’s 2020 recording of Purcell’s Fairy Queen was described by Gramophone Magazine as “impeccable.”