Music on the London Stage

Event information

Spiritato!
Bocca Aperta
Elenor Bowers-Jolley soprano
Oliver-John Ruthven tenor

Purcell Suite from The Fairy Queen
Locke Music for The Tempest
Eccles Symphony for Mercury (from The Judgment of Paris)
Finger Music for The Humours of the Age
Purcell Music from The Fairy Queen

Musicians-in-Residence at St John’s, Spiritato! take us back in time to a very different kind of West End musical theatre, circa 1700, when Henry Purcell was the Andrew Lloyd-Webber of his day. Providing the framework for this evening’s concert is the sublime music from one of Purcell’s most famous stage works, The Fairy Queen – an adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In between, is a chance to hear the music of Purcell’s lesser-known contemporaries: Matthew Locke, Gottfried Finger and John Eccles, whose music for the Judgment of Paris was the winner of fierce composition competition.

Insight: Music Theatre c. 1700
6.30pm | Admission free
Spiritato! director William Russell and members of the ensemble discuss the music of English Restoration theatre.