Merlin Tuttle

Henry Purcell and librettist John Dryden never dreamed of a production of King Arthur like this one, where Merlin descends to the stage via a sailboard, and where Arthur and his rival, the Saxon King Oswald, fight a boxing match ("Round One! Box!") for a unified England and for the love of Emmeline. The work's extensive spoken passages – longer than those which are sung – are performed in German by actors, while the vocal music is performed in the original English by singers. The libretto, in addition to being lengthened, has been updated and now contains references to video cameras, the Bayreuth Festival, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and to Maestro Harnoncourt himself… Raymond Tuttle