Juicy solution to the Purcell problem: Opera North’s Masque of Might reviewed

Another week, another attempt to solve the Purcell problem. There’s a problem? Well, yes, if you consider that a composer universally agreed (on the strength of Dido and Aeneas) to be a great musical dramatist left only one stageable opera (that’d be Dido and Aeneas), but hour upon hour of theatre music that’s effectively unperformable in anything like its original context: i.e., yoked to text-heavy Restoration dramas. How to get this stuff back on stage? 

Masque of Might, David Pountney’s new extravaganza for Opera North, is one solution, and it’s rather a fun one. Purcell’s Ode for the Birthday of Queen Mary and Welcome Song for King James II were uncritical affirmations of their era’s ruling ideology, so it’s appropriate that this 21st-century masque should be subtitled ‘an eco-entertainment’. Recycled items of scenery (notably the caravan from Opera North’s current Falstaff) are pressed into use, and of course the entire score (which includes numbers from Dioclesian and The Indian Queen as well as those fawning royal odes) has been vigorously re-purposed. 

Pountney weaves the different numbers together with flair, dispensing (wisely) with spoken dialogue and keeping the whole thing moving seamlessly along. This being a masque, the story is rudimentary – just enough to support song, dance and a thumping great moral. The tyrant Diktat (Callum Thorpe) is born and starts to despoil the environment. We know he’s bad because he wears a tie and – er – because he’s called Diktat. A Swampy-like activist, played by Andri Bjorn Robertsson, is given the name of Nebulous. 

Anyway, Diktat gets his comeuppance and trundles off inside that caravan while everyone sings and dances in celebration. Again, that seems very much in the spirit of the 17th century; you don’t want to overthink these things.