September’s Cog night took us to the Cockpit in Marylebone to see The Fairy Temple, as a part of Tête à Tête – a forward-thinking Opera festival.
The Fairy Temple at The Cockpit
As we hurtled towards central London I wondered what kind of performance was in store, I had never seen an Opera before and I was excited to see what form this one might take. The information on the show page left me with more questions than answers…
...we enter the temple of the fairies as they perform their services and celebrations...
and this advisory:
..All ages, but mostly adults..
It was my first time in the Cockpit and you can see how excited we all were to arrive
The space felt welcoming and cozy and I was charmed by the fact they were giving out plants inside the bar.
We chatted for a while in the bar before a bell was rung and we were ushered into the performance space, on the way down we were greeted by two fairies, handing out programmes.
We continued down to the black box theatre and found our seats, where there were two fairies already engaged in playing some scene setting folk music, and waited for the rest of the crowd to arrive.
The stage was set up as a chapel, complete with alter and priest, and as the lights dimmed more fairies joined the musicians on stage and began to sing.
What followed was 40 minutes (the perfect amount of time) of pure fun and joy.
There was harmony, drums, folk dancing and a puppet priest that went around and blessed members of the audience (or should I say congregation?) before being shoved under the table by the fairies (although he did return for a bow at the end).
Behind the fairies handy-cam footage of the inside of a church was projected, with a sort of ‘found footage’ feel, which unfortunately did make me feel a bit dizzy as the camera man (or camera fairy perhaps) seemed to be trying to replicate what it might look like if one was flying around the church at points.
At particular junctures the lights came up and we were invited to join them in song, which really added to the ceremonial feel. A particular highlight was when we were all offered communion in the form of dried apple.
Towards the end the fairies held a raffle (remember when we received a raffle ticket in the beginning?) to elect the a pope, a member of the congregation who was crowned with their interpretation of a papal mitre complete with fairy lights.
Afterwards when doing some post show googling I found out that the lyrics were written by 17th century lyricist and Anglican cleric Robert Herrick and the music by Lucinda Guy – a modern composer who lives in the area where he was at one time vicar.
I can’t profess to be an expert on the man but I can say this; RIP Robert Herrick you would have loved Fairy Temple.
Illustration by Naomi Clarke for our Cultural Calendar.
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