Dido and Aeneas

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Audience Member Kudos to Richard Hickcox, the chorus, Rebecca Evans, Patricia Rozario and James Bowman. Though not awful, the coven is rather textureless and would have been much improved with a tenor, a baritone or even another mezzo w. more distinctive timbres in the Sorceress role. More of a casting problem however are the two leads. Unless one can sing Dido à la Jessye Norman, the subtle rhythms & complex dissonance peculiar to Purcell & English Baroque should be handled w. clean agile ornamentations. That said, Maria Ewing is not without grandeur, her phrasing of "the skies are clouded...haaark!" is the most striking I have heard. Baritone Karl Daymond's ponderous, muddy reading lacks the inventive declamation and freshness required for Aeneas' recitativo arioso heavy material. His square-jawed approach may be appropriate for other leading-man roles but it is too simplistic, boring for this work. By not capitalizing on the dissonance inherent in the music, in the continuo passages, Daymond misses the opportunity to color and develop Aeneas' waffling character. That the No. 2 role is snatched from lady-in-waiting Belinda (Rebecca Evans is wonderful, btw) further complicates his job. The romantic-pair-as-leads formula so common in film makes for a less interesting operatic realization. Portraying Aeneas as heroic is a mistake; to Purcell, this father of Rome is hero to neither Dido nor Carthage. For even the flakiest of cassanovas, careening from 'Aeneas has no fate but you!' to 'one night enjoy'd, the next forsook' within a day is waffling indeed. I appreciate that maestro Hickcox highlights the metric irregularities and dissonance in the music rather than hide them as is common with mainstream productions. After many listens to this and the richly textured adaptations by maestra Emmanuelle Haïm which I also like (though with some caveats), I've grown to appreciate Hickcox's employment of slower tempi for the leads while retaining conventional speeds for the rest of the cast. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/30/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Dido and Aeneas

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