Despite the success of his masterwork Dido and Aeneas ( 1689 ), in which the action is furthered by the use of Italian-style recitative, much of Purcell's best work was not involved in the composing of typical opera, but instead he usually worked within the constraints of the semi-opera format, where isolated scenes and masques are contained within the structure of a spoken play, such as Shakespeare in Purcell's The Fairy-Queen ( 1692 ) and Beaumont and Fletcher in The Prophetess ( 1690 ) and Bonduca ( 1696 ).

Despite the success of his masterwork Dido and Aeneas ( 1689 ), in which the action is furthered by the use of Italian-style recitative, much of Purcell's best work was not involved in the composing of typical opera, but instead he usually worked within the constraints of the semi-opera format, where isolated scenes and masques are contained within the structure of a spoken play, such as Shakespeare in Purcell's The Fairy-Queen ( 1692 ) and Beaumont and Fletcher in The Prophetess ( 1690 ) and Bonduca ( 1696 ).

0.006 seconds.