Page 520 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

Purcell: The Fairy Queen - Vox Luminis - Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh Festival (Photo: Britten Pears Arts)

Fairies and suchlike were running riot in Snape Maltings Concert Hall with a memorable semi-staged
performance of Purcell’s The Fairy-Queen set to the original anonymous text after Shakespeare’s A
Midsummer Night’s Dream but with new material by Isaline Claeys and additional material/English
translation by actor Simon Robson who acted as the Narrator. Before coming to the stage, Robson
studied Philosophy and Social and Political Science at Cambridge University before training to be an
actor at RADA. He has appeared in Doctors, Tom & Viv, Bodywork and Trial and Retribution as well
as EastEnders playing Graham Stone.

And the strong, confident, sprightly bunch of exceptional and talented singers that make up Vox
Luminis - producers of the show in association with Concertgebouwe Brugge - acted extremely well,
too, while concept and shadow puppetry was well conceived by Emilie Lauwers who along with Mário
Melo Costa’s video designs helped enormously the visual impact of the production.

To add to the overall stage picture, David Carney’s simplistic set and moody lighting was in keeping
with each of the five scenes while the choreographed curtain-call was a scene all wrapped up by