6.30pm Pre-concert Event: Interview with Philip Pickett about Purcell and The Fairy Queen

Commissioned to provide the incidental music for a spectacular Restoration adaptation of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and inspired by the impending celebration of a royal wedding anniversary, Purcell and his anonymous librettist devised a series of brilliant and colourful self-contained masques which need nothing of the play to make their delightful impact.

Philip Pickett’s iconoclastic approach, brilliant circus artists, star solo singers and mesmeric staging by brilliant Mexican director Mauricio García Lozano combine to convey all the fantasy and inextinguishable energy of Purcell’s magical score. With a cast of Lovers, a Drunken Poet, Night, Mystery, Secrecy, Juno, Phoebus, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Hymen. Co-produced by the New London Consort, de Doelen Rotterdam and The Sage Gateshead in collaboration with the Anglo Mexican Foundation and Circus Space London.

Associate Artists of The Bridgewater Hall

Part of the International Concert Series

Season Sponsor: Manchester Airport