Circe is a rhymed tragedy written by Charles Davenant and revolves around a plot consisting of intertwining love triangles. It had an extensive amount of music written for it by John Bannister and was considered to be halfway between a drama and an opera. Its first performance was in 1676 at the Dorset Garden Theater by the "Duke's Men," a theater troupe under the auspices of Sir William Davenant. The "Duke's Men" were later managed by Betterton and Harris after Davenant's death, and they produced many of the subsequent semi-opere of Purcell. Circe was the last semi-opera performed at the Dorset Garden Theater until the early 1690s, when the form underwent a revival.

The music for the play composed by Purcell dates from between 1685 and 1695, the year of his death. The exact date is unsure because there is no clear record of which revival the music would have been written for. The drama is ambitious, and requires quite a bit of music. Purcell composed only an Incantation Scene for the end of Act I, but the scene is extensive and helps add to the spectacle of Bannister's work. The background for the scene is a conjuration on the part of Circe to ascertain whether or not her love for Orestes will be requited.

As usual, for a grand entrance, Purcell employs the bass voice. "We must assemble a sacrifice" is for solo bass and chorus in a walking tempo in duple time. "We must assemble a sacrifice" is declaimed in a homophonic style with the words "we must" repeated to give the opening and close of the piece stability. As the priest calls forth the demons from hell, the winding melodic line that sets "those demons who do range" into imitative counterpoint. The running eighths appear in thirds, and are thrown back and forth between the voices and instruments.

The next section consists of recitatives for the two priests who are tenor and bass voices respectively. And there is also an air and a chorus. The melodic line for "Their necessary aid" fall to an e flat on the word poisonous, and climbs back up with chromatic inflections. Purcell places a roulade on the word odor to set it apart, and the chorus answers with the same musical material with string accompaniment.

The air in the section is full of rhythmic intricacies and is set over a ground figure in the bass that he develops and repeats. It is marked andante, and has a gentle feel to it as the words sing "The air with music gently wound/ Sweet smells thy love, and every pleasing sound." Purcell was known to have preferred dissonance to consonance. He wrote at one point that too much consonance was "cloying" to the ear, and dissonance more pleasing. As if to make his point, he sets the word "pleasing to some beautifully dissonant part writing. Not only that, but he sets the word further apart with rhythmic variety in the form of a dotted eighth and sixteenth note melisma. Purcell resets the same text for choral treatment, to reinforce the poetry of the air.

A group of airs and choruses follows. "Come every Demon" is set for solo tenor and chorus. After an opening instrumental introduction, it is in a lyrical and carefree triple meter. Purcell playfully sets the text, employing at one point a hocket like figure. "Circe the daughter" is the choral response, and has Purcell's usual amount of word painting. There are playful running eighths on "play", and "guilded" is guilded with special treatment. "Play" also is set to lighter dotted rhythms in its melisma, rather than the usual slurred group of notes, making the word leap gracefully on the page. The tenor solo voice returns in "You who hatch factions", which is similar musical material to "Come every Demon". It is almost a strophic setting with a choral refrain, for the chorus returns with another statement of "Circe the daughter".

The soprano and alto duet "Lovers who to their first embraces go" is an extremely florid setting for two female voices. The music for this drama is not as dramatic as some of the other semi-opera scores but, there is a good amount of Purcellian pictorialism nevertheless. "Languish" has a falling sighing interval, and embrace features running sixteenths in an elaboration sure to give the performer pleasure. The opening is declamatory but immediately apon the words "In speed you can outdo", the music breaks into a faster, allegro full of imitative scale and arpeggiated material. "Creeping thought" creeps dramatically up the chromatic scale slowly to the end before the alto enters with her solo material.

"Great Minister of Fate" is the chorus that announces the conjuration. It is a grand choral number in a maestoso, and is followed by a dance of the magicians. "Pluto arise!" is the final number. To a trumpet-like arpeggio theme, the bass voice again calls Pluto forth to answer Queen Circe's requests. The piece is full of lively counterpoint as Pluto comes forth.

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