The Purcell Choir and the Orfeo Orchestra, under the baton of György Vashegyi, will perform Purcell's King Arthur - The British Worthy, at Budapest's Palace of Arts on November 18. Soloists will include Andrea Csereklyei, Szilvia Hamvasi, Eszter Wierdl, Péter Bárány and Dávid Szigetvári. The German Raimund Nolte, who has worked with some of the greatest conductors of the genre, will also perform.
King Arthur, with a libretto by John Dryden, is based on the battles between King Arthur's Britons and the Saxons, rather than the legends of Camelot. It is a "Restoration spectacle" that includes such supernatural characters as Cupid and Venus as well as references to the Saxon gods Woden, Thor and Freya. It is a dramatic-opera or semi-opera, in that the principal characters do not sing unless they are supernatural, pastoral or drunk.
Source: www.fidelio.hu
