On July 1st, for one evening only, The Fairy Queen will be performed in the gardens of Wyke House in Somerset. ArtMuseLondon’s opera reviewer, Karine Hetherington, went to talk to bass-baritone, Timothy Dickinson, and soprano, Amy Carson about Purcell’s opera.

Why did you choose this opera?

Timothy : Having presented Acis & Galatea, the pinnacle of so-called pastoral opera, last year, we were very keen to think of another baroque masterpiece that we could present with reduced forces. As we perform outdoors (weather permitting!), a pastoral theme is ideal, and The Fairy Queen, with its strong tie to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, seemed like an obvious choice.

Amy : With a small budget and an intimate setting, it is a fun challenge to go about choosing operas that will work well, and to decide how we produce them: cuts, casting, instrumentation. The Fairy Queen is so versatile and can be performed with narrative and/or thematic threads. There’s comedy, tragedy and magic: what more is needed?

Can you tell us a little bit about the opera…

Timothy : It isn’t an opera as such, nor is it a set of incidental music. The music was to be presented alongside an original libretto, loosely adapted from the Shakespeare play. As such, modern productions often choose to intersperse Purcell’s musical numbers with excerpts from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, eschewing the original libretto.

Amy : I love the idea that opera can be made accessible and be adapted to work in different circumstances, for varied forces and different voice types, whilst maintaining integrity and quality. The Fairy Queenpresents the perfect opportunity to be unconventional and creative in ensemble and we have a few surprises in store for our audience!

You have included some poetry readings …

Timothy : We had some success with this idea last year, with Acis & Galatea. The version we used actually cut several characters from Handel’s opera, leaving us with a fairly short evening’s entertainment and some slightly two-dimensional characters! So, we looked for some relevant poetry to bolster the characters and to flesh out the drama, and it worked nicely. In this instance, we are yet again performing a slimmed-down version of Purcell’s work, and decided that, given how much licence producers of this piece have taken over the years, we may as well craft our own libretto of sorts, without having to depend entirely on Shakespeare.

Amy : there are so many incredibly powerful and fitting poems out there and they simply don’t get read often enough. Integrating them into the narrative and having the characters read them adds so much to the drama.

The evening – how is it organised for the audience – The country setting, and house looks ravishing – but do you recommend umbrellas?

Timothy : I would hate to tempt fate by talking about the weather, but so far we’ve had excellent weather at Wyke! Of course, umbrellas are a good idea, but leave them in the car!

Amy : Ah and we have an exciting wet weather plan, where we move to the big barn and the audience sit on straw bales surrounded by fairy lights. However, the weather and the light add so much to the evening. And it is a somewhat rustic setting. Last year we had several gusts of wind and the trees whistled along to a few da capos. And the bird song and the bats were quite magical. Something all the performers have commented on is how incredibly fulfilling and moving it is to be making music surrounded by nature. The players insist on sitting on straw bales to be thoroughly connected. In fact, last year a rather large spider emerged from a strawbale onto the cellist’s lap during rehearsal and we were reminded about the added excitement of BUGS. 

The musical ensemble – where are the musicians from?

Timothy : Our good friend Maggie Faultless has hand-picked the band for this project from a select pool of top players with whom she works regularly, both in the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and in her own group, Music for AWhile.

Amy : It is such a joy to work with friends who are professional singers and it’s great that this year we are a team who all live in the West Country. In fact, Tom Hobbs lives a stone’s throw from where I grew up in the Blackdown Hills. 

What are the challenges and the delights of outdoor performance from the singer’s point of view? 

Timothy – The most obvious hurdle is the almost total lack of an acoustic. With nothing to reflect the voice, it does feel very different singing outdoors. Having said that, the fairly enclosed spaces at Wyke House do actually lend themselves very well to live singing and playing, especially the orchard, with all the trees and the natural canopy of the foliage.

Amy : It feels very exposed to sing outdoors, but it’s also very freeing. I get fretful about bugs, that’s my main issue!

Where are you both singing next?  

Amy : Next up is another performance of our The Fairy Queen with Maggie and her festival Music for Awhile in her village in Wiltshire! 

Timothy – All sorts! We both enjoy the diversity of our singing careers. I do quite a lot of work with the excellent Education department at the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, performing for and with young people across the country. We’ve also got a couple of Proms to look forward to: me with the BBC Singers and Simon Rattle, and Amy with Dunedin Consort and John Butt.

What roles would you like to sing? Your favourite repertoire/operas

Timothy : It’s quite a long list, and quite a lot of it is pure fantasy, but I’d definitely love to sing Figaro, having studied the role quite intensively at the National Opera Studio. Perhaps we’ll have to do it at Wyke one day… I also have a dream of doing Hindemith’s The Long Christmas Dinner, but that’s a harder sell!

Amy : I recently sang my first Verdi requiem, which was an extraordinary experience – it’s written so beautifully for the voice. I’d love to sing more opera, but both the lifestyle and the industry are brutal. I’d love to sing Pamina on the stage, and Dido (yes, I know it’s a mezzo role but even so…) and Anne Truelove, ah, that’s the dream. 

Do you think opera will survive in this modern world?

Amy : Yes, but it’s going to take a monumental investment in school music education. I discovered opera when a small group of singers and instrumentalists came to my school and gave a semi-staged cut performance of Magic Flute and I sang one of the three boys. I then spent the next two years singing and Pamina’s aria at the piano, transfixed by the emotive harmonies and the beauty of the vocal melody. Ten years later I was singing the role in a major movie directed by Kenneth Branagh. It only takes one good tune to take you on the most incredibly journey, and there are so many good tunes, with new ones being written all the time. Opera is here to stay, we just need to celebrate it more widely. 

Timothy : Opera will survive as long as Music survives, it just needs to evolve from time to time. The value placed on Music and the performing Arts is so strikingly different in mainland Europe to the UK. I’d love to see that change, and it certainly starts in the classroom.

The Fairy Queen, Henry Purcell, at Wyke House, Wyke Champflower, Bruton, Somerset BA10 OPW. 6am on Saturday 1st July. Tickets £35 each

To book : https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-fairy-queen-tickets-579123362567

KH