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Purcell: Dido and Aeneas (CD)
“Gerald Finley is the best Aeneas on record.” Rough Guide to Opera
Five out of five stars: The Guardian
Composer: Henry Purcell
Conductor: Rene Jacobs
Performers:
· Dido: Lynne Dawson
· Aeneas: Gerald Finley
· Belinda: Rosemary Joshua
· First Witch: Dominique Visse
· Second Witch: Stephen Wallace
· Second Woman: Maria Cristina Kiehr
· The Sorceress: Susan Bickley
· Spirit: Robin Blaze
· Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment [members of]
Recorded: Henry Wood Hall, London, October 1998.
Re-issued: 11 April 2006 (originally released 13 February 2001)
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Harmonia Mundi HMX 2991683
ASIN: B000EBD92G
Click each track title to hear music samples:
Track 10. Act I: If Not For Mine - Gerald Finley
Track 24. Act II: Behold, Upon My Bending Spear - Gerald Finley
What the critics say
From The Rough Guide to Opera, 3rd edition, Matthew Boyden, 2002
Rene Jacobs recent recording provides a lively alternative to the Pinnock version, although some of his stylistic idiosyncracies border on the wilfully perverse, not least in his treatment of the witches. While soprano Susan Bickley is a restrained but convincingly malevolent Sorceress, her two accomplices, in the shape of the counter-tenors Dominique Visse and Stephen Wallace, camp it up like a couple of Dames in an English pantomime. Pinnock's Belinda, Lynne Dawson, is here promoted to the role of Dido which she carries off with grace and elegance but with none of the emotional depth of either Baker or von Otter. She's not helped by the fact that, as a soprano, her voice is very similar to that of Rosemary Joshua's Belinda, thus making for a certain monotony in their scenes together. Gerald Finley is the best Aeneas on record, making an unrewarding role more rounded than is usual.
Andrew Clements for The Guardian, Friday February 23, 2001
http://www.guardian.co.uk/friday_review/story/0,,441417,00.html
Queen of lamentation
Rating: 
Andrew Clements praises Lynne Dawson's superb, searing performance as Dido, and rounds up the rest of the new releases
There are already plenty of excellent CD versions of this most recorded of all English operas, but René Jacobs predictably offers a fresh perspective, and a cast of luxurious quality too. With Susan Bickley a magnificence presence as the Sorceress, Rosemary Joshua an incisive Belinda and Gerald Finley in the rather unrewarding role of Aeneas, as well as singers of the calibre of soprano Maria Cristina Kiehr (as Second Woman) and counter-tenors Dominique Visse (First Witch) and Robin Blaze (Spirit) in the smaller roles, this is a line-up of great vocal and dramatic potential.
It is the sheer drama of Purcell's score that Jacobs emphasises most of all. His tempi are sometimes faster then usual, sometimes more languorous, yet his decisions never seem wilful; all are designed to invigorate the drama, and to turn this strange work into a living, breathing piece of theatre, in which the narrative drive is never allowed to falter. For that both the crisp, alert playing of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the vivid contributions of the choir of Clare College, Cambridge, must take part of the credit, creating the framework within which the protagonists can enact the tragedy with maximum immediacy.
In the end, though, the success of any new version of Dido and Aeneas is determined by its central role: here it is Lynne Dawson. Jacobs makes sure that the trajectory of the whole work leads inevitably towards Dido's great lament, just as it should, and when it arrives Dawson rises eloquently to the challenge, carving out the lines in searing, anguished phrases. There is nothing arch or cosmetically pretty about her singing. Instead, it has exactly the kind of emotional directness that typifies this immensely powerful performance.
M. Lignana Rosenberg, Opera News
Dido and Aeneas, like Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, is one of those rare operas blessed with several thoroughly satisfying recordings. One's initial response, then, to Harmonia Mundi's latest entry into this already crowded field is: why? Why release yet another version of Purcell's admittedly fascinating score when listeners already can choose from splendid renditions led by Nicholas McGegan, William Christie and Trevor Pinnock, to name only a few?
The answer, it turns out, is that Harmonia Mundi's producers know a good thing -- in this case, a very good thing -- when they hear one. From the grand, assertive phrasing of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the overture's opening measures to the hushed, poignant conclusion of the chorus's lament for the dead queen, this performance of Purcell's masterwork is simply riveting. Vivid in characterization, striking an exemplary balance between, on the one hand, the opera's surreal variety of tone and mood, and on the other, the ceremony befitting a courtly entertainment, this Dido easily holds its own in the proud company of currently available recordings.
Chief among its strengths is Lynne Dawson as the ill-fated Queen of Carthage. Though she lacks the opulent tone associated with mezzo Didos, and the smoldering passion that, say, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and Janet Baker bring to the role, her silvery timbre and touch of reserve suggest both the youth and the judiciousness of this monarch undone by love, making her untimely demise all the more devastating. Dawson's performance of "When I am laid in earth" stands out for its simplicity, utterly right and deeply affecting. In contrast to many a recorded Dido, Dawson resists the temptation to droop and dawdle; she and conductor René Jacobs keep the music firmly shaped and moving forward, her exquisite handling of the text and subtle shifts in tonal color vastly more eloquent than the sloppy, heart-on-one's-sleeve style of expressiveness with which others have burdened this music.
The excellent company in which Dawson finds herself includes Rosemary Joshua, a pert, impetuous Belinda (also with beautiful diction); Gerald Finley as Aeneas, rich and lithe of voice; and Susan Bickley, Dominique Visse and Stephen Wallace as Dido's hellish adversaries, whose hateful, sneering outbursts really do curdle the blood. The Clare College Chapel Choir under Timothy Brown ably impersonates both the witches' unruly companions and the grave, elegant courtiers of Dido's retinue. A triumph, recommended to newcomers to Purcell's opera, as well as to longtime devotees.
Michael Greenhalgh for seen and Heard
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2006/July06/purcell_dido_hmx2991683.htm
After four years at full price this 1998 recording is now reissued at budget price but the booklet still includes the full libretto. I checked the sound with the original (HMC 901683) and, as you’d expect, there’s no difference. This time the CD is presented in a slipcase with the 2006 Harmonia Mundi catalogue (163 pages) but as it’s still in a standard jewel case you can discard the catalogue when it gets out of date … or earlier. But that would be a pity, as you wouldn’t notice that the same team recorded Blow’s Venus and Adonis - at the same sessions. As Blow’s work was clearly the model for Purcell’s - as stated the back cover of this Purcell CD - Jacobs’ recording starts with a unique and authentic frame of reference. A legitimate opportunity for marketing this connection more directly is wasted.
Overture and Act 1
The Overture is excellently done. A stylish, measured introduction, courtly and lithe, thoughtful but not inevitably tragic, followed by a quick section which is impetuous, eager, light and youthful. A standard French overture, but also both elements of Dido’s character vividly revealed before we hear her. The impetuous side is then emphasised in Belinda’s air and following chorus (tr. 2) and even continues in the quite fast tempo for Dido’s opening aria (tr. 3). But there’s also a certain regal style in Lynne Dawson’s sultry projection, poignantly softening at ‘Peace and I are strangers grown’. The greatest tenderness, however, comes in the orchestral postlude.
Although Dido stands out passionately in them, the following recitatives (trs. 4, 6) are weakened by the allocation of the Second Woman’s lines - as assigned in the 1689 printed libretto - to Belinda in addition to her own. This breaks the symmetry of three female voices at court in parallel with three female voices later at the witches’ cave. It also unduly strengthens Belinda’s role, makes the Second Woman’s first appearance in a duet with Belinda puzzling and, odder still, her first solo is the most extended aria in Act 2 (tr. 23). On a more positive note, Gerald Finley’s Aeneas is attractive. His voice is firm, virile and youthful. He may be no more than living in the moment, but you readily accept him.
The choruses are pleasingly varied, so you feel this court is never dull. For ‘Fear no danger to ensue’ (tr. 7) there’s guitars’ backing for the first time and the strings’ doubling of the top three chorus parts is here taken by recorders to jollier effect. On the other hand the more reflective next chorus, ‘Cupid only throws the dart’ (tr. 9) is appropriately more luxuriantly sedate. The final chorus of Act 1, ‘To the hills and the vales’ (tr. 12) both swings crisply and yet is also a formal celebration. The following Triumphing Dance is lighter but still swinging, with notably clear inner parts.
Act 2
This begins arrestingly with a thunder clap (tr. 14). An inauthentic, cheap effect, I’m afraid. The point of the first scene is the witches conjure a storm, so the thunder comes at the end (of tr. 20) where here there’s just a puny ripple. The impact in music alone of the Prelude, in the change of key from C major to F minor, is also thereby weakened, though the quavers are stabbingly accented.
I like the subtlety of Susan Bickley’s Sorceress. There’s just a slight sinister edge to the voice. Only when she has a trill on ‘Italian ground’ in her later recitative (tr. 16) does she briefly show a cackle, so the effect is like the lifting and returning of a decorous mask. The witches, on the other hand, feature an undisguised cackle from the start, but with a nice contrast between the relished malevolence in the slow treatment of the chorus ‘Harm’s our delight’ (tr. 15) and the fast laughing choruses that follow.
This is the only recording where counter-tenors take the roles of First and Second Witch. This is unlikely to have happened at the only known performance in Purcell’s lifetime, at Josias Priest’s girls’ school, where the spotlight was naturally on female performers. It also means the Sorceress and the First and Second Witch are no longer vocally a mirror image of Dido, Belinda and the Second Woman; but the latter’s role has already been truncated, as already mentioned. In terms of representation only in sound, counter-tenors make for a lively, oddball sort of contrast, especially Dominique Visse’s totally uninhibited hamming in the duet ‘But ere we this perform’ (tr. 18). Further contrast comes when the First and Second Witch exchange parts for the repeats of both strains of this duet. The trouble is, after these high jinks, the witches’ Echo Chorus and Dance seem a bit staid.
The second scene starts with a ritornello of luxuriant ease (tr. 21), the recorders’ doubling supplying the cream. ‘Thanks to these lovesome vales’ (tr. 22) is imaginatively varied from the norm, which is a solo by Belinda with repeats followed by a chorus repeat with repeats. Here the chorus joins Belinda’s repeats - which she still leads - and the following chorus is purely instrumental. It’s the groundbass too that generates the tension in the Second Woman’s aria ‘Oft she visits this lov’d mountain’ (tr. 23).
Counter-tenor number 3, Robin Blaze, appears as the Sorceress’s Spirit, providing with the previously unused backing of chamber organ suitably spooky sailing orders for Aeneas. However, in terms of the 1689 performance, he’s no more authentic than the two male witches. The tradition of casting a counter-tenor in this role only goes back to the 1967 Mackerras recording (on DG). Anyway Gerald Finley makes a cogent response to reveal the human side of Aeneas.
Within the booklet notes René Jacobs discusses the ‘missing music’ at this point. His solution is to set the libretto’s witches’ chorus ‘Then since our charms have sped’ to ‘About him go, so, so, so’ from the Scene of the Drunken Poet in Purcell’s semi-opera The Fairy Queen (1692) (tr. 27). Then he uses that work’s Third Act Tune Hornpipe as the Dance which concludes this act (tr. 28). Personally I find these rather genteel and upbeat for the vicious and spiteful antics of the witches.
Act 3
To the Prelude Jacobs brings an ironically carefree, lilting holiday atmosphere. Decked out with recorders and guitars his Sailors’ Dance gets your feet tapping. Then the briefest of pauses (tr.31) provides a momentous entry for the Sorceress and naked malice from the chortling First and Second Witches, Dominique Visse really upstaging his boss with hyena-like trills. Consistent with the practice in Act 2, there’s a sadistic deliberation about the witches’ chorus ‘Destruction’s our delight’ (tr. 33). Here there’s also a sudden increase of tempo at ‘And Carthage flames tomorrow’, a stylish manipulation and menacing unpredictability repeated equally effectively in the following Witches’ Dance.
The final scene shows Lynne Dawson’s Dido both imperious and desolate in her recitative, at once noble and melting at ‘But Death, alas, I cannot shun’ (tr. 35 3:16). She begins the famous aria ‘When I am laid in earth’ (tr. 38) with stark simplicity and sensitively shades the whole, commanding for the first ‘remember me’ then treating its repeat as a softening plea. Incidentally, at ‘ah forget my fate’ the variation between the melisma on ‘forget’ first time and ‘ah’ second time follows the earliest surviving manuscripts. Most, if not all, other recordings have the melisma on ‘ah’ both times.
Jacobs finds just the right tempo and weight of emphasis for the closing chorus, thereby creating in sound a graphic picture of drooping wings and roses being scattered on Dido’s tomb. This is partly because he uses a semi-chorus until the words ‘Keep here, your watch’ (tr.39 1:37). Then he uses full chorus for that final sentence and for the repeat of this chorus until he returns to semi-chorus for the second appearance of ‘Keep here, your watch’ (4:08). Arguably over-elaborate, this is typical of the care and sophistication with which Jacobs approaches the whole opera.