Half an Opera

This evening I went to the Palacio de Bellas Artes for the first time. It's a beautiful building in the centre of town, started in 1904, interrupted by revolution and soft soil problems and finally completed 30 years later. The outside may be neoclassical but the inside is art deco with murals by Riviera, Siqueiros and others.
The performance tonight was a semi-staged opera, or rather a dramatised Early Music concert: Purcell's The Fairy Queen, played by the New London Consort. Alongside the musicians was a troupe of singers, jugglers & acrobats dressed in modern garb and ultra minimal staging (suitcases basically). The piece was originally based on Shakespeare's Midsummer Nights' Dream but this version dispenses with all but the section in Arcadia. I failed to follow the plot but the combination of music, singing and fine interior, made for a rather enchanting evening.