22nd March

Concert will begin at 19:00 hours GMT

Purcell's 'King Arthur' with Arens, Wichmann, Pollak and Götz from Schwetzingen

SWR Schwetzingen Festival. Purcell's 'King Arthur, or The British Worthy' is a semi-opera in five acts with a libretto by John Dryden. The plot is based on the battles between King Arthur's Britons and the Saxons, rather than the legends of Camelot (although Merlin does make an appearance). It is a Restoration spectacular,[3] including such supernatural characters as Cupid and Venus plus references to the Germanic gods of the Saxons, Woden, Thor, and Freya. The tale centres on Arthur's endeavours to recover his fiancée, the blind Cornish Princess Emmeline, who has been abducted by his arch-enemy, the Saxon King Oswald of Kent. Performers:

Arthur/Osmond: Elias Arens.
Oswald / Merlin / Emmeline: Katrin Wichmann.
Philidel: Marie-Sophie Pollak.
Grimbald: Florian Götz.
Priest / Aeolus: Jonathan de la Paz Zaens.
Priest / Comus: Andrew Redmond.
Priest / He / Comus: Felix Rumpf.
Victim / Honour: Shimon Yoshida.
Soldier: Volker Nietzke.
Shepherdesses: Minsub Hong, Katharina Hohlfeld-Redmond, Julienne Mbodjé.
Sirens: Fabienne Weiß, Viktoria Wilson.
She: Mi-Young Kim.
Venus: Anja Petersen.

RIAS Kammerchor. Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. Conductor: Justin Doyle.

Recorded 20 May 2024.