King Arthur (opera)
King Arthur, or The British Worthy (Z. 628), is a semi-opera[1] 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.[2]
King Arthur
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,[3] 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 a great deal of King Arthur consists of spoken text.[4] This was normal practice in 17th century English opera. King Arthur contains some of Purcell's most lyrical music, using adventurous harmonies for the day.
Performance history[edit]
The exact date of the premiere is unknown but the wordbook was advertised in The London Gazette from 4 to 8 June 1691, suggesting a recent staging.[9] Peter Holman believes it was performed in May.[5] The production was not as spectacular as Dioclesian or the later The Fairy Queen but it proved the most financially successful for the theatre. Betterton himself took the role of King Arthur, despite being in his fifties. The contemporary writer Roger North was most impressed by Charlotte Butler's singing of Cupid, describing it as "beyond anything I ever heard upon the stage", partly ascribing her success to "the liberty she had of concealing her face, which she could not endure should be so contorted as is necessary to sound well, before her gallants, or at least her envious sex."[10]
King Arthur was revived at least twice during Purcell's lifetime and continued to be performed in the later 1690s.[11] The first major revival in the eighteenth century was staged in 1736. This production left the work unaltered, but later revivals involved varying degrees of revision. They included a performance in Dublin in 1763; David Garrick and Thomas Arne's version in 1770; and John Kemble and Thomas Linley's transformation of King Arthur into a two-act after-piece entitled Arthur and Emmeline in 1784.[12]
Libretto[edit]
Interpretation based on political allegory[edit]
According to Curtis Price, the original 1684–5 version was probably an allegory of the Exclusion crisis, a major political dispute over who would succeed Charles II: his Catholic brother, James, Duke of York or the Duke of Monmouth, his illegitimate — but Protestant — son. The faction backing James was nicknamed the "Tories"; that in favour of Monmouth, the "Whigs". The latter were led by Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the Earl of Shaftesbury. Dryden was a convinced Tory and had already satirised Shaftesbury and other Whigs in his poem Absalom and Achitophel (1681). In Price's reading, King Arthur represents Charles II, the Britons are the Tories, and the Saxons are the Whigs. Oswald is the Duke of Monmouth and Osmond/Grimbald is the Earl of Shaftesbury. Philidel is the Marquess of Halifax, a political moderate much admired by Dryden (he would dedicate the printed edition of King Arthur to Halifax). Emmeline personifies the "national conscience."[13]
Sources and influences[edit]
Dryden did not base his libretto on standard versions of Arthurian myth, although he was familiar with such books as Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae.[14] He did, however, use other works of literature as sources of inspiration. There are clear parallels between King Arthur and Shakespeare's The Tempest (which Dryden had revised in line with Restoration taste in collaboration with Sir William Davenant in 1667 and which had been turned into a semi-opera with music by Matthew Locke in 1674).[15]
Ellen T. Harris has described the links between the characters: Prospero and Merlin are both good magicians who use an "airy spirit" (Ariel in The Tempest, Philidel in King Arthur) to defeat a potential usurper (Alonzo/Oswald). The relationship between Arthur and Emmeline is like that between Ferdinand and Miranda. Like Miranda, Emmeline is an innocent who has "never seen a man" (quite literally true in the case of the blind Emmeline). Finally, there are obvious similarities between the "earthy spirits" Grimbald and Caliban, although there is no evil wizard corresponding to Osmond in The Tempest.[16]
Dryden also used material he found in epic poetry: the idea of the "enchanted wood" is taken from Canto XVII of Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata;[14] and Andrew Pinnock suggests the rivalry between Arthur and Oswald is like the conflict between Gondibert and Oswald in Sir William Davenant's unfinished poem Gondibert (1650).[17]
In his preface, Dryden explained how he had conducted historical research into Germanic paganism to write the sacrifice scene in the first act: "When I wrote it, seven years ago, I employ'd some reading about it, to inform my self out of Beda, Bochartus, and other Authors, concerning the rites of the Heathen Saxons...".[18] But Andrew Pinnock believes "practically all the ritual came from a far handier source (which unaccountably Dryden forgot to mention): Aylett Sammes's Britannia Antiqua Illustrata (1676)."[19]
Music[edit]
The Frost Scene in the third act has always attracted praise from critics. Edward J. Dent wrote, "The Frost Scene is one of Purcell's most famous achievements" with "its bold contrasts of style, and the masterly piling up of the music to a climax at the end of the chorus ''Tis love that has warmed us'".[20] Thomas Gray, commenting on the 1736 production, described it as "excessive fine" and said that the Cold Genius' solo was "the finest song in the play".[21] This aria ("What power art thou who from below") is accompanied by shivering strings, probably influenced by a scene from Act IV of Jean-Baptiste Lully's opera Isis (1677); but, as Peter Holman writes, Purcell's "daring chromatic harmonies transform the Cold Genius from the picturesque figure of Lully (or Dryden, for that matter) into a genuinely awe-inspiring character — the more so because Cupid's responses are set to such frothy and brilliant music".[21] It has been suggested that the whole scene was inspired by the frost fairs held on the Thames during the 1680s.[22]
Venus' act V air "Fairest Isle" achieved wide fame, inspiring Charles Wesley's hymn "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" to the same tune.
"What power art thou who from below" was recorded by Klaus Nomi on his eponymous first album as "The Cold Song". In his album Beacon released on July 28, 2021, Susumu Hirasawa recorded the same aria as "Cold Song" with lyrics rewritten in Japanese and included it in the album.[23]
The prelude to Act III serves as the basis for the piece Chasing Sheep Is Best Left to Shepherds in Michael Nyman's score for the 1982 movie The Draughtsman's Contract. Nyman then reused it for his 1984 Memorial and again in 1989 in the score for The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover.
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