Masque of Might - Opera North, 2023, Harry Bicket, Sir David Pountney

Purcell

Henry Purcell is arguably England’s finest composer of music for the stage before Benjamin Britten, yet he wrote only one opera, Dido and Aeneas. Masterpiece though that undoubtedly is, much of Purcell’s greatest dramatic music is to be found in the ‘semi-operas’, masques and other entertainments that were popular in his time, such as The Fairy Queen.