Poetry and Music in Purcell's The Fairy-Queen

"It is well known that Henry Purcell composed music for operas, but what he actually did for the operas and what his music was like is rather unknown. This paper tries to describe the nature of the music in his 'semi-operas' by analyzing the words and music of The Fairy-Queen. Henry Purcell composed two kinds of opera: one which is now called a 'full-opera' in which all words are sung like in Italian operas, and the other which is now called a 'semi-opera' in which most words are spoken and music is played as the last part of each act. Purcell wrote one full-opera, Dido and Aeneas, and four semi-operas, Dioclesian, King Arthur, The Fairy-Queen, and The Indian Queen. From the close analysis of the words and music of The Fairy-Queen, it is made clear that the words and the music is so closely connected that the separation from each other causes great damage to the meaning and beauty of the music Purcell composed for the play, though it is a common practice in making CDs and DVDs these days. Another discovery is that the musical parts do not completely function as traditional masques in that they contribute to making the play more actual and realistic.