PURCELL : THE INDIAN QUEEN

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 27th of July 2014 at 6.03 - 9.45 pm

PURCELL: The Indian Queen, a semi-opera in five acts
This new version of the work by Peter Sellars
incorporates songs and anthems by Purcell
with texts by Katherine Philips, George Herbert and others
Doña Luisa, the Indian Queen... Julia Bullock
Doña Isabel................................ Nadine Koutcher
Ixbalanque................................. Christophe Dumaux
Mayan hero................................ Vince Yi
Don Pedrarias............................ Markus Brutscher
Don Pedro de Alvarado............. Noah Stewart
Mayan Priest............................. Luthando Qave
Leonor....................................... Maritxell Carrero
Mayan gods............................... Burr Johnson
................................................... Takemi Kitamura
................................................... Caitlin Scranton
................................................... Paul Singh
Tecún Umán.............................. Christopher Williams
Leonor (as girl)......................... Celine Peña
MusicAeterna (Perm Opera Chorus & Orch)/Theodor Currentzis
 (recorded in Teatro Real, Madrid, by Spanish Radio)

INTRODUCTION 
LIBRETTO
AUDIO  (50 min)
AUDIO (1h13m)
VIDEO (3h15m)
REVIEW

You can hear the original 50-minute version, in English, on the world-wide web, and the picture you look at as you listen shows an Indian woman, from the real India in South Asia. However, the action is actually set in South America (said to be Mexico and Peru), employing that misuse of the word "Indian" that goes back to Christopher Columbus, saving face by calling the people he met there "Indians". So it shold be "The Amerindian Queen". The cast includes Maya gods, and a Maya priest (he will tear your heart out if he is authentic).

Another version, Christopher Hogwood, shows a scene of female nudity for the duration (over an hour).

The version we hear is from Madrid (but we know how English tourists love being in Spain, and Spaniards conquered South America; and this is a co-production with the English National Opera).

We have access to a copy of the original libretto, but this new version has been expanded by Peter Sellars (having watched him putting the words of Dr Atomic together for John Adams, I know he is a scissors-and-paste person). It now takes four hours, instead of less than one hour. The whole thing is
on the web.

To my chagrin (pronounced shag-grin [perhaps I should not have said that] it is a French word of unknown origin] I have no Purcell operas in my index, not even The Fairy Queen or Dido and Aeneas, though we have had both in our video-opera group. But it is described as a semi-opera (like Grieg's Peer Gynt?). {Dido and Aeneas have been there since 2008, but not indexed, I have now found.]