ENGLISH Touring Opera‘s production of Henry Purcell’s The Fairy Queen at the Wycombe Swan on Tuesday evening was, in the experience of this writer, who has seen it five times before, the most enjoyable amongst them by far. Authenticity is more arguable - and is in any event impractical to obtain.

For in the days of King William III and Queen Mary II time was no restriction on the length of theatrical entertainment. Purcell wrote the Fairy Queen as a mini-series of self-contained “snippets” to run alongside Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Nights’ Dream. It has survived as an entity because of the sheer quality of its music - well demonstrated by ETO on period instruments.

So, as one of Purcell’s four so-called “semi” operas, it presents particular problems, and every producer has had his own ideas on the subject. To date I felt the English Bach Festival’s 1993/4 season’s production was the nearest to the spirit of the original - a short sequence of mimed episodes from the Shakespeare introducing and enveloping the Purcell - and I think it remains so.

However director Thomas Guthrie in one respect ignores its origins and in another respects them.

He has woven together a completely new “plot” based on the life and Shakespearean paintings of one Richard Dadd, a murderer inmate of Bedlam mental asylum. Without spelling it out by chapter and verse, the skilful fitting in of the original anonymous script and Purcell’s complete and splendid music makes for a fine new plot set in Bedlam - sometimes poignant, sometimes funny. What really matters is that it works.

On the other hand Guthrie recognises that spectacle was a major factor in late Stuart theatre. He opens (and nicely warms up the audience) with a display by aerialists. He also includes dancers and a display of puppetry that was particularly suited to the ”Echo Song”. All these enhanced the work...

Conductor Joseph McHardy brought the best out of his orchestra and singers, who were closely drilled both vocally and as part of a team. Credit is due to Mark Wilde (who played Dadd with sincerity), Nicholas Merryweather (with a brave tackling of some fearsomely low notes), Aidan Smith (the finest drunken poet I have witnessed), Nina Lejderman and Louise Alder.

Particular mentions go to last minute substitutes Peter Kirk and Julia Riley whose great Act II aria fleetingly reminded me of the late Jennifer Vivian’s 1964 rendering in terms of dignity and vocal stance.