The collaboration of the poet John Dryden and Henry Purcell marked a conspicuous leap forward for English opera. Their greatest project and Purcell's biggest stage success, 'King Arthur,' is a five-act 'dramatick opera', the text of which had its origins in a patriotic musical play Dryden had written in 1684 but which he radically overhauled. The result was a semi-opera that appealed to the audience's enthusiasm for fine costumes, lavish sets, ingenious stage machinery and a cast of singers, dancers and instrumentalists, containing vocal show-stoppers such as the imperishable Fairest Isle and Frost Scene. This critically acclaimed staging uses a new performing edition by René Jacobs and is sung in English with German dialogue.
