Miriam Margolyes rules the waves as Brisbane defrosts Purcell’s genius.

City Hall, Brisbane
April 11, 2016

The scene in King Arthur where love thaws the frosty genius of the British Isles is without doubt one of the most original pieces of dramatic writing of the entire Baroque. With juddering vocals and quivering strings, Henry Purcell paints a picture and tells a story as compellingly as Handel, Vivaldi or Rameau ever did. Yet sadly his small store of stage works are seldom seen, often hampered by being locked into performances of unwieldy post-Restoration plays. King Arthur (or the British Worthy) is one of his two semi-operas, weighed down by John Dryden’s windy text, which tells a tale frustratingly unrecognisable to aficionados of Britain’s legendary monarch of the Round Table. With two and a half hours of music, a full outing would last a bum-numbing five hours plus, so it was a smart move on the part of Brisbane Baroque to fillet the play and focus on Purcell’s supremely tuneful music and a score that contains more earworms than any contemporary continental opera.

^{Kiandra Howarth and David Greco}

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