The Fairy Queen

English Touring Opera presents Henry Purcell's strange and delicate masque recreating the enchanted world of Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. The director Thomas Guthrie has long been fascinated by this ethereal opera and his production, influenced by the deranged English fairy miniaturist painter Richard Dadd, imagines the story set in a military convalescent hospital. With simple and elegant designs by Roger Butlin, the production includes dancers and acrobats alongside singers such as Mark Wilde. It is a joyous production, filled with fantasy and craft. Joseph McHardy conducts the Old Street Band, ETO's baroque orchestra.