King Arthur
Cold Genius Song Henry Purcell

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUETgs791tk

King Arthur in the State Opera in Berlin.

Finally I got to see it live and was very impressed with the costumes and stage design. The music and performance was excellent. If your not familiar with this Opera it’s worth listening specially the sacrifice scene (Act 1) and the frost scene (Act 3) are my favorite. The trailer can be found here.

Recording is from 2017 in Schillertheater before the re-opening of the State Opera unter den Linden.

King Arthur (opera)

King Arthur, or The British Worthy (Z. 628), is a semi-opera in five acts with music by Henry Purcell and a libretto by John Dryden. It was first performed at the Queen's Theatre, Dorset Garden, London, in late May or early June 1691.The plot is based on the battles between King Arthur's Britons and the Saxons, rather than the legends of Camelot (although Merlin does make an appearance). It is a Restoration spectacular, including such supernatural characters as Cupid and Venus plus references to the Germanic gods of the Saxons, Woden, Thor, and Freya. The tale centres on Arthur's endeavours to recover his fiancée, the blind Cornish Princess Emmeline, who has been abducted by his arch-enemy, the Saxon King Oswald of Kent. King Arthur is a "dramatick opera" or semi-opera: the principal characters do not sing, except if they are supernatural, pastoral or, in the case of Comus and the popular Your hay it is mow'd, drunk. Secondary characters sing to them, usually as diegetic entertainment, but in Act 4 and parts of Act 2, as supernatural beckonings. The singing in Act 1 is religious observance by the Saxons, ending with their heroic afterlife in Valhalla. The protagonists are actors, as...
Definition from Wikipedia – King Arthur (opera)

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