Name: The Indian Queen
Start: 2013-11-05T00:00:00.000Z
End: 2013-11-19T00:00:00.000Z
Location: Teatro Real

Organization

Singer

Julia Bullock

Doña Luisa

Nadine Koutcher

Doña Isabel

Conductor

Teodor Currentzis

Stage director

Peter Sellars

Costume designer

Dunya Ramicova

Set designer

Gronk

Maritxell Carrero

Leonor

Luthando Qave

Mayan Chaman

Christophe Dumaux

Ixbalanqué

Vince Yi

Hunahpú

Markus Brutscher

Don Pedrarias Dávila

Noah Stewart

Don Pedro de Alvarado

Christopher Williams

Tecún Umán

Chorus master

Vitaly Polonsky

Choreographer

Lighting designer

James F Ingalls

Teatro Real de Madrid

Orchestra

musicAeterna Orchestra

The Indian Queen -  (Indian Queen)

Madrid

Spain

Teatro Real

From the Teatro Real de Madrid, 2013
Semi-Opera in five acts with prologue
Libretto by John Dryden after texts by Katherine Philips, George Herbert

Watch the second part:https://youtu.be/DUnpk-G6fCY
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Vince Yi Hunahpú - Mayan hero/Trickster twin deity
Julia Bullock - Teculihuatzin, The Indian Queen, after Doña Luisa
Markus Brutscher - Don Pedrarias Dávila, Captain General and Governor of Terra Firma
Nadine Koutcher - Doña Isabel
Noah Stewart - Don Pedro de Alvarado, conquistador
Christophe Dumaux -  Xbalanque, Mayan Hero/Trickster twin deity
Luthando Qave - Mayan Shaman

MusicAeterna: Choir and Orchestra of the Perm Opera
Teodor Currentzis - musical director
Vitaly Polonsky - chorus master

Peter Sellars - stage director
Gronk - sets designer
Dunya Ramicova - costumes
James F. Ingalls - lighting
Christopher Williams - choreography

Spoken Texts by Rosario Aguilar

Henry Purcell died in 1965, while composing his last opera “The Indian Queen”. So his brother Daniel completed hastily and with poor inspiration the rich,visionary and transcendental score of the great British composer. Some centuries later, Peter Sellars has imagined a fresh and unedited new version of Purcell’s last masterpiece, including some of Purcell’s most inspired songs, with a new libretto adapted from “La niña blanca y los pajaros sin pies” (The white maid and the feetless birds) from Nicaraguan novelist Rosario Aguilar. 

The original libretto by John Dryden was supposed to be situated at the courts of Lima and Mexico before the Spanish invasion, developing how an impossible love story between the Queen of the Aztecs and the general of the Yncas will provoke an imaginary conflict between Yncas and Aztecs. Sellars personal vision is more political; it intertwines music, dance, literature,theatre and visual arts and describes the first contact between the Europeans and the Mayas of the New World, a personal and choral narration of the Conquista through the lives of two women who created a new culture.

From the Teatro Real de Madrid, 2013
Semi-Opera in five acts with prologue
Libretto by John Dryden after texts by Katherine Philips, George Herbert

Subscribe to EuroArts: https://goo.gl/jrui3M

Vince Yi Hunahpú - Mayan hero/Trickster twin deity
Julia Bullock - Teculihuatzin, The Indian Queen, after Doña Luisa
Markus Brutscher - Don Pedrarias Dávila, Captain-General and Governor of Terra Firma
Nadine Koutcher - Doña Isabel
Noah Stewart - Don Pedro de Alvarado, conquistador
Christophe Dumaux -  Xbalanque, Mayan Hero/Trickster twin deity
Luthando Qave - Mayan Shaman

Music Aeterna: Choir and Orchestra of the Perm Opera

Teodor Currentzis - musical director
Vitaly Polonsky - chorus master
Peter Sellars - stage director
Gronk - sets
Dunya Ramicova - costumes
James F. Ingalls - lighting
Christopher Williams - choreography

Spoken Texts by Rosario Aguilar

Henry Purcell died in 1965, while composing his last opera “The Indian Queen”. So his brother Daniel completed hastily and with poor inspiration the rich, visionary and transcendental score of the great British composer. Some centuries later, Peter Sellars has imagined a fresh and unedited new version of Purcell’s last masterpiece, including some of Purcell’s most inspired songs, with a new libretto adapted from “La niña blanca y los pajaros sin pies” (The white maid and the feetless birds) from Nicaraguan novelist Rosario Aguilar. 

The original libretto by John Dryden was supposed to be situated at the courts of Lima and Mexico before the Spanish invasion, developing how an impossible love story between the Queen of the Aztecs and the general of the Yncas will provoke an imaginary conflict between Yncas and Aztecs. Sellars personal vision is more political; it intertwines music, dance, literature, theatre and visual arts and describes the first contact between the Europeans and the Mayas of the New World, a personal and choral narration of the Conquista through the lives of two women who created a new culture.

A superb adaptation of Purcell's the Indian Queen, staged and directed by Peter Sellars and performed in 2013 at the Teatro Real in Madrid. Peters Sellars combines John Dryden and Robert Howard's libretto with a short-story written by the Nicaraguan writer Rosario Aguilar, La niña blanca y los pájaros sin pies.

Henry Purcell died in 1695, while he was composing his last opera The Indian Queen. His brother Daniel completed hastely the rich, visionnary and transcendental score of the great British composer. The Indian Queen is a semi-opera, a genre in vogue in the late 17th century. It refers to a work that combines music, recitatives and ballets. The Indian Queen is probably one of Purcell's less often performed stage works compared to his more famous pieces: The Fairy Queen, King Arthur and the opera Didon and Æneas. The original libretto deals with several loving conflicts against a backdrop of Caribbean war.

The libretto
The original libretto by John Dryden was supposed to be situated between Lima and Mexico before the Spanish invasion, developping how an impossible love story between the Queen of the Aztecs and the general of the Yncas will provoque an imaginary conflict between Yncas and Aztecs.

The adaptation of Peter Sellars describes the first contact between the Europeans and the Mayas of the New World, a personal and choral narration of the Conquista through the lives of two women who created a new culture.

The staging
Over three centuries after Purcell, Peter Sellars has imagined a fresh and original new version of Purcell's last masterpiece, including some of his most inspired songs, with a new libretto adapted from John Dryden and Robert Howard's libretto and the short story La niña blanca y los pajaros sin pies (The white maid and the feetless birds) by Nicaraguan novelist Rosario Aguilar.

Sellars removes Purcell's brother's additions to the original score, and adds songs from Henry Purcell's other works: "O Solitude", "Music for a while" and some others. He makes the love story between the two main characters deeper and gives greater importance to politics.

The casting brings together the French countertenor Christophe Dumaux and a myriad of young voices – Julia Bullock, Yi Vince, Luthando Qave. Choirs and music are wonderful. This sublime work combines song, dance, theater, music, painting and the history of literature. The Indian Queen is a co-production of the Teatro Real Madrid, the English National Opera in London and the Opera of Perm in Russia.

The Indian Queen is one of the most spectacular new reconstructions in recent years. Peter Sellars has filled in the gaps in Purcell's unfinished opera with a series of spiritual works and musical and spoken interludes. The staging features set design by graffiti artist Gronk, while Teodor Currentzis and his musicians tease out the magical details from Purcell's score. The result is a perfectly realized whole that is stirring, unique and enchantingly beautiful.

The Pittsburgh-born stage director presents at the Teatro Real his version of the Henry Purcell score with texts from the novel La niña blanca y los pájaros sin pies (The White Girl and the Birds without Feet) by the Nicaraguan writer Rosario Aguilar, and songs and hymns by Purcell with texts by Katherine Phillips, George Herbert, and other authors.

 

The production, with colourful set designing by Gronk and conducted by Teodor Currentzis leading his ensemble MusicAeterna, gives a voice to the women, both indigenous and colonisers, who were part of the Conquest of the Americas yet never appear in the chronicles and official accounts of the era.

 

Sellars skilfully adapts the evocative, allegorical world of magic described by the English composer as the perfect framework in which to give full rein to the deepest and most obscure human emotions, all from the female viewpoint which was always ignored.

The Indian Queen Purcell

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