Henry Purcell’s semi-opera, The Fairy Queen, was written for a caste system, where the landed gentry wanted, nay demanded, entertainment to fill their hours. So, how can such blithe baroque fare be relevant at this juncture? 

In 2020, three co-directors, Melanie Kloetzel, Peter Balkwill and Laura Hynes came together to engage in a research project to restructure The Fairy Queen for the contemporary period. Performed by students at the University of Calgary, this new version of The Fairy Queen also offered a vision of utopia (dystopia), but one predicated on the ideals of both consumption and the creation of waste that is ingrained in capitalist society today. Through a rewritten libretto, restructured musical arrangements and tongue-in-cheek choreography, The Fairy Queen examined the behaviours that support our inequitable system.

February 2020 at the University Theatre.