Henry Purcell’s only Opera proper Dido and Aeneas is a magnificent example of English Baroque music with lively dances and passionate aria sections that demonstrate Purcell’s masterful compositional and choral writing skill. Based on a libretto by Nahum Tate it was first performed in 1689 comprises three acts and lasts about an hour. Filled with dramatic lyricism with a wide range of musical and emotional content it is a monumental Baroque composition considered to be one of England’s foremost operatic works. Dido and Aeneas contains all the elements for a successful opera including a shipwreck sorcery love and lost love anddeath. This is the Vocal and Full Operatic Score edited by Margaret Laurie and Thurston Dart. With its interesting and imaginative realization and authentic editorial process this is an excellent edition that features some performing choices and variants and also includes the reconstructed prologue.

King Arthur (Arr. Laurie)-King Arthur was the only one of Purcell's professionally produced operas to have been designed as a semi-opera; the others were all adaptations of earlier plays. Dryden made a real attempt to integrate the music into the drama but since he ascribed to the dramatic conventions of the period which virtually confined music to allegorical or supernatural beings and thier worshippers or servants shepherds and similar characters the main action mostly occurs in the spoken sections and even the two singing characters Philidel and Grimbald speak more than they sing.

This the first of Purcell's Operas for the professional stage is edited in Vocal Score format by Margaret Laurie. The first performance of this work was produced by Betterton with great success at the Dorset Garden Theatre in June 1690. The text was an adaption almost certainly by Betterton himself of Flethcer and Massinger's play 'The Prophetess'.