King Arthur – Edinburgh festival review

Usher HallKing Arthur is one of Henry Purcell's semi-operas – a Restoration drama blending text by John Dryden with music, dance and often outlandish stagecraft. The full work tells of Arthur and the Britons battling against Oswald's heathen Saxons, its timely patriotic subtext promoting a happily unified Britain. But as the protagonists (including Arthur and Oswald) are spoken roles and Purcell's songs are left for supernatural spirits, sirens and peasants, most of what we get in a concert pe...

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