History
Despite being designated as a masque, the work is sung throughout, and is in many respects reminiscent of a comic opera. It is set by Windsor Castle, and depicts satyrs and fairies who guard the castle and its inhabitants during ceremonial occasions. The masque concludes with a banquet with the King and Queen in attendance. Of particular note is the wood nymphs’ aria "Let us play and dance and sing", which has a large range of approximately 2 and a half octaves and has some impressive coloratura passages. The Act 1 choral finale, "Then all the air shall ring", is also particularly fine.
The Fairy Prince was very well received at its premiere and was performed 36 times during the 1771-1772 season. While critics and audiences praised both the music and the elaborate sets of the production, the work was strangely never revived. The masque's score was published in 1771 but without the dance music, recitatives, and some of the choruses.
Read more about this topic: The Fairy Prince
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945)
“I saw the Arab map.
It resembled a mare shuffling on,
dragging its history like saddlebags,
nearing its tomb and the pitch of hell.”
—Adonis [Ali Ahmed Said] (b. 1930)
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)