Early Music Guild looks to the dawn of English opera

The Early Music Guild, an indispensable part of Seattle's period-music scene for more than two decades, every once in a while steps back from presenting the best and the brightest musicians from around the world and produces extravaganzas of its own.

COMING UP

EARLY MUSIC GUILD

PROGRAM: Henry Purcell's "Welcome to All the Pleasures" and John Blow's "Venus and Adonis"

ARTISTS: Singers include Amanda Jane Kelley, Glenn Guhr, Anne-Carolyn Bird and others drawn from the Tudor Choir and Opus 7, as well as members of Seattle Early Dance

WHEN: Tonight through Sunday

WHERE: Falls Theatre at ACT Theatre, 700 Union St.

TICKETS: $35-$40; 206-325-7066 or www.earlymusicguild.com

To celebrate its 20th anniversary, in 1997, the guild presented a stellar reading of Handel's "Carmelite Vespers" at St. James Cathedral, with Andrew Parrott leading the large forces. More recently was a weekend of Monteverdi chamber operas.

Over the next few days at the Falls Theatre at ACT, the guild is offering English opera at its beginning -- John Blow's "Venus and Adonis" -- and a companion piece, Henry Purcell's ode "Welcome to All the Pleasures." Both were composed circa 1683.

More than 30 musicians -- singers and instrumentalists -- and dancers will partake in the production. The cast is drawn from the Northwest pool of freelance artists, both Seattle and Portland. The exception is stage director James Middleton, founder of the Ex Machina Baroque Opera Company, which flourished in Minneapolis in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and who was active in prestigious early music festivals such as Boston and Bloomington. He is joined by Fred Hauptman, conductor, and Anna Mansbridge, choreographer.

The opera was created for the pleasure of King Charles II's court. Venus was played by the actress Mary Davies, once the king's mistress, and Cupid by Lady Mary Tudor, their daughter. It was not called an opera at the time. The composer called it a masque, which had a genuine tradition in England, meaning an elaborate entertainment for the aristocracy consisting of singing, dancing, text and instrumental accompaniment. However, French and Italian influences are clear in "Venus," and it eventually became known as an opera, considered the first example of its genre in England. It was the only such work Blow was ever to write.

What attracted the guild to "Venus," said Gus Denhard, its executive director, was its varied demands, employing singers, dancers and instrumentalists. Particularly attractive was the amount of dance in the piece, perhaps as much as 25 percent. Seattle Early Dance, run by Mansbridge, is affiliated with the Early Music Guild, which makes it a natural partner in this enterprise. "Venus" is not so long -- 60 minutes -- enough to be challenging but not overwhelming to an organization not accustomed to producing opera.

"The shocking dramatic turn of the piece will grab people," said Denhard. "The first two-thirds deals with the playful intrigue of love between Venus and Adonis, teasing the audience about what love is supposed to be. The opera itself is full of crisp cross-relations often found in English music. The harmonic language is spicy with a lot of dramatic music in the Italian style. And there is a tunefulness I always associate with English music. The dancing is in the French courtly style, which is appropriate because Charles II spent time in the French court before he regained his throne."

The Early Music Guild has not performed at ACT previously. For this production, a thrust stage was sought as well as the possibility of a pit for the instrumental ensemble.

Blow was a well-known teacher in London and Purcell his most brilliant student: Thus, the inclusion of Purcell's ode to round out the program. Purcell's opera, "Dido and Aeneas," by far the most famous opera of the English Baroque era, followed "Venus" by six years.

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