Purcell - King Arthur / Gens, McFadden, Piau, S. Waters, J. Best, Padmore, Paton, Salomaa, Les Arts Florissants, Christie
The Fairy Queenmay be the most famous of Purcell's "semi-operas"  (spoken dramas with extended musical items incorporated--not to say dropped in), butKing Arthur, with text by John Dryden, is undoubtedly the most satisfying.  Not  only is the music captivating on its own terms, it's unusually well-integrated into the  action--for example, one musical scene depicts the heathen Saxons performing a pre- battle ceremony; another shows good spirits guiding King Arthur and his men through a  dark swamp while evil spirits try to mislead them.  The first three acts have a lot of vivid  battle and pastoral music, but the real goodies come on the second disc: the first duet of  Act IV, in which seductive sirens Sandrine Piau and Claron McFadden attempt to  lure Arthur into a stream ("come, come naked in, for we are so..."), and the masque in  Act V in honor of Britannia, which includes (in addition to winning music) a  Chamber-of-Commerce-like paean to British products such as fish, wool, and wheat, a  rowdy drinking song with some pointed anticlerical sentiment, and the famous song  "Fairest isle" (beguilingly sung by Véronique Gens). The multinational cast  handles the English text well; other standouts include the marvelous tenor Mark Padmore  and bass Petteri Salomaa.  This recording was prepared right after Graham Vick's wildly  successful production of the full Dryden/Purcell text at the Théâtre du  Châtelet in Paris (the booklet has some impressive photos); not surprisingly, the  performances have an extroverted theatrical energy usually missing from concert versions  of this music.--Matthew Westphal