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After critically acclaimed runs in New York, Paris and around the world, Mourad Merzouki’s staging of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen comes to the Proms. Expression and spontaneity characterise both Merzouki’s hip hop-derived dance, Paul Agnew’s musical direction and Purcell’s 1692 composition, a series of allegorical celebrations of young love based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (For two other major musical responses to the play, see Proms 36 & 68.) Goblins and elves meet street dance as Paul Agnew makes his Proms conducting debut and soloists from Le Jardin des Voix (the vocal academy run by Les Arts Florissants) and dancers from Merzouki’s troupe combine in this moving and imaginative meeting of genres.

There will be one interval

Image from November 2023 performance at Lincoln Center © Lawrence Sumulong