Pascal Neyron STAGE MANAGER
Leonardo García Alarcón DIRECTION
Chanteurs en résidence à l’Académie de l’Opéra national de Paris
Cappella Mediterranea

PURCELL Dido and Aeneas, with excerpts from King Arthur and The Tempest

Here we are in the midst of fantasy: magicians, witches, evil spirits, demigods, kings and queens cross paths, cunning and loving each other to death, in scores based on an ancient mythology already revisited by Virgil for The Tempest, and Shakespeare for Dido and Aeneas. Purcell (1659-1695), whose many masterpieces written for the court of Richard II were condensed into a life as short as Mozart's, paved the way for a typically English form of musical theatre, integrating song, ballet and performance, all infused with a colourful fantasy. This is why Leonardo García Alarcón's Ensemble Cappella Mediterranea, together with the young generation of singers from the Paris Opera Academy, invites us on a doubly extraordinary journey.