The Indian Queen is a semi-opera

Semi-opera

The terms Semi-opera, dramatic[k] opera and English opera were all applied to Restoration entertainments that combined spoken plays with masque-like episodes employing singing and dancing characters. They usually included machines in the manner of the restoration spectacular...

 in five acts with music by Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...

, first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...

, London in 1695. The exact date is unknown but Peter Holman surmises it may have been performed in June, without the Masque in Act 5, which had to be completed after Purcell's death in November by his brother Daniel

Daniel Purcell

Daniel Purcell was an English composer, the younger brother of Henry Purcell.As a teenager, Daniel Purcell joined the choir of the Chapel Royal, and in his mid-twenties he became organist of Magdalen College, Oxford. He began to compose while at Oxford, but in 1695 he moved to London to compose...

. The libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 is a revised version of the play The Indian Queen

The Indian Queen

The Indian Queen is a play by Sir Robert Howard, written in collaboration with John Dryden, his sister's husband. It was first performed in 1664 with incidental music by John Banister the elder...

(1664) by John Dryden

John Dryden

John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...

 and Sir Robert Howard

Robert Howard (playwright)

Sir Robert Howard was an English playwright and politician, born to Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Berkshire and his wife Elizabeth.-Life:...

. It was Purcell's last semi-opera.

Recordings of the music

• The Indian Queen Soloists, St. Anthony Singers, English Chamber Orchestra
  English Chamber Orchestra
  The English Chamber Orchestra is a British chamber orchestra based in London. The full orchestra regularly plays concerts at Cadogan Hall, and the ECO Ensemble performs at Wigmore Hall...
  
  , conducted by Charles Mackerras
  Charles Mackerras
  Sir Alan Charles Maclaurin Mackerras, AC, CH, CBE was an Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan...
  
   (Decca L'Oiseau-Lyre, 1966)
• The Indian Queen Soloists, Deller Singers, King's Musick, conducted by Alfred Deller
  Alfred Deller
  Alfred George Deller CBE , was an English singer and one of the main figures in popularizing the return of the countertenor voice in Renaissance and Baroque music during the 20th Century....
  
   (Harmonia Mundi)
• The Indian Queen Soloists, Monteverdi Choir
  Monteverdi Choir
  The Monteverdi Choir was founded in 1964 by Sir John Eliot Gardiner for a performance of the Monteverdi Vespers in King's College Chapel, Cambridge. A specialist Baroque ensemble, the Choir has become famous for its stylistic conviction and extensive repertoire, encompassing music from the early...
  
  , English Baroque Soloists
  English Baroque Soloists
  The English Baroque Soloists is a chamber orchestra playing on period instruments, formed in 1978 by English conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Its repertoire comprises music from the early Baroque period to the Classical period...
  
  , conducted by John Eliot Gardiner
  John Eliot Gardiner
  Sir John Eliot Gardiner CBE FKC is an English conductor. He founded the Monteverdi Choir , the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique...
  
   (Erato, 1980)
• The Indian Queen Soloists, Academy of Ancient Music
  Academy of Ancient Music
  The Academy of Ancient Music is a period-instrument orchestra based in Cambridge, England. Founded by harpsichordist Christopher Hogwood in 1973, it was named after a previous organisation of the same name of the 18th century. The musicians play on either original instruments or modern copies of...
  
  , conducted by Christopher Hogwood
  Christopher Hogwood
  Christopher Jarvis Haley Hogwood CBE, MA , HonMusD , born 10 September 1941, Nottingham, is an English conductor, harpsichordist, writer and musicologist, well known as the founder of the Academy of Ancient Music.-Biography:...
  
  (Decca L'Oiseau-Lyre, 1995)
• The Indian Queen Soloists, The Purcell Simfony and the Purcell Simfony Voices (Linn, 1995)
• The Indian Queen Soloists, Scholars' Baroque Ensemble (Naxos, 1998)