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Last week I was off to the Barbican to hear Purcell's music for King Arthur. I expressed misgivings about the lack of dramatic context - ironic, given pains to justify the adaptation of the narrative and his poetic style for this 'dramatick opera'. (As if to prove the point, just yesterday one of my students presented me with an essay demonstrating how carefully Dryden integrated the music into his dramatic structure!)

Well, of course, the soloists did a marvellous job of dramatising the music - particularly and , and the chorus coyly popped on woolly hats and scarves for the 'frost scene', raising the obligatory laugh from the audience. But the drama was not, unfortunately, particularly present in the orchestra, who were hurried along at a pace that seldom allowed for consideration of dynamics (or singers' need for breath!) - as if speed itself provided all the 'drama' necessary. 'Fairest Isle', alas, suffered particularly, though Susan Gritton did her level best to pull the tempo back to something more minuet-like.

The fashion for speed is notable in early opera performances these days - and not only in unstaged productions - to the point where one sometimes wonders whether a fast tempo covers for a lack of musicality. I guess 'early music' has become so much part of the mainstream that it can be a bit of a production line: fast tempi being a signature of the 'early music' way of doing things back in the '80s, they've become rather a fetish. That's a pity not only dramatically, but also because so much theatre music was based on dance (and dance tempi), and derived a good deal of extra meaning from that connection.

Handel knew how to incorporate dance metres in his operas and oratorios to telling effect, and used them regularly: for instance, he wrote over 50 beautiful siciliana arias, particularly for the expression of mournful or pastoral texts ('And he shall feed his flock' in is a late, pastoral piece based on siciliana rhythms). Dance metres appeared most often in the earlier operas. David McVicar's Agrippina acknowledged this by featuring dance as an important part of the production - although the dance styles were hardly 'authentic'!

I'm off to hear another Agrippina this weekend - and another unstaged production, at the Festival Hall, with Marc Minkowski. I'm hoping to hear the drama in the orchestra this time, as well as from the singers...

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