Venus and Adonis

The very first English opera 

Purcell's mentor John Blow was an archetype of British musical tradition and the most distinguished musician of his time. Dedicated to sacred genres, he composed his sole opera for the entertainment of King Charles II.

He wrote this short drama for a royal salon with the spiritual intensity and the kind of humor allowed by the secular tradition of English masque.

Goddess Venus loves the young hunter Adonis. Yet, how to be certain of a mortal's eternal fidelity, however enamored? Their love will undergo painful hardships. Under the pen of Blow, the gracious pastoral turns into a true tragedy. In transfiguring mythological characters through a baroque sensibility, the work prompted the young Purcell to create a through-composed opera based on the French and Italian patterns.

It inaugurates English operatic history by the end of the 17th century.

Performance duration 1h40 with an interval