Henry Purcell‘s ‘The Indian Queen (1695) is set in Peru and Mexico just before the Spanish invasion. The libretto is a tangle of court intrigues, wars and love rivalries in which the Aztec hero, general Montezuma, plays a central role. The Indian Queen is a semi-opera: the musical sections are alternated with spoken and danced passages. The spoken excerpts have increasingly tended to disappear as the performance has evolved over time. This renders the music sovereign and the libretto disintegrates into fragments that have no easily explicable coherence. This automatically leads Jan Decorte towards greater abstraction.
In his version, Decorte selects images that reinforce the musical experience. Compared to his ‘Dido and Aeneas (2006) – also with B’Rock – , this is a ‘wilder’ adaptation. The orchestra, for instance, will also perform as a choir and thereby provide both instrumental and vocal support to the four solo singers. Decorte tends towards an almost primitive simplicity that links up amazingly well with the still budding, immature aspect of early English opera-to-be. As in Dido and Aeneas, Sigrid Vinks will once again play the role of Mistress of Ceremonies and link the scenes together. Conductor is Frank Agsteribbe is in charge of B’Rock.
Coproduction of KunstenfestivaldesArts, Kaaitheater, Concertgebouw Brugge and deSingel, commissioned by KunstenfestivaldesArts and Kaaitheater.
Production by B’Rock and Bloet vzw.