PAST, PRESENT AND FANTASY COLLIDE IN COMPOSER HENRY PURCELL'S FEVERISH HALLUCINATIONS

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A concertplay by award-winning writer Clare Norburn and directed by BAFTA-nominated director Nicholas Renton.

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Purcell is in his final illness.

 

1695; through feverish dreams and dramas, hallucinations and hauntings, Henry Purcell, with the shadow of death falling over his tousled bed, revisits the past and conjures his former self from the archives of memory and nostalgia: son and father, singer and composer, bon vivant and bereaved child and parent.​

 

Somewhat dishevelled in a nightgown and breeches, Purcell gives a frenzied account of his life, providing a snapshot into his losses and loves, career and carousing - the Great Fire of London, his relationships with his wife and theatre actresses, and multiple bereavments - and so creates a landscape of 17th-century London and a vision of the age.

 

Interwoven into the text are assorted instrumental and vocal compositions by Purcell which take on a life of their own: from bawdy theatre ballads and joyful celebrations of love, to slow airs, a ‘mad song’, and numbers from his semi-operas.​

 

Written in 2018, originally titled Burying the Dead and performed by Ceruleo, the show has been performed at Buxton International Festival, Lake District Summer Music, Saxon Shore Early Music, Baroque at the Edge at LSO St Luke’s, Ryedale Festival, Brighton Early Music Festival and York Early Music Christmas Festival.