Purcell: Dido & Aeneas

 (2009)

Purcell: Dido & Aeneas Blu-ray delivers great video and superb audio in this exceptional Blu-ray release
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Purcell: Dido & Aeneas Blu-ray Review

An impeccable fusion of music and dance highlights this inventive production of Purcell's 'Dido and Aeneas.'

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, December 18, 2009

Sometimes you just have to feel for our British cousins across the pond. Often derided for being less culturally astute than their Continental brethren, a lot of this supposed lack of sophistication comes courtesy of the vagaries of history, at least in the sometimes wild and wacky world of opera. While European centers of music like Vienna or Salzburg or Paris were alive with the talents of such masters as, say, Mozart, England seemingly lumbered along without really contributing anything of major import. Unless you consider the strange fate of Baroque composer Henry Purcell. Purcell, now from the vantage point of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, is seen as the somehow largely forgotten father of British opera, an achievement he contributed long before Mozart took pen to paper. The really strange thing is his only "real" opera (meaning his only through-sung piece), Dido and Aeneas, has a fairly ignominious history itself, with its genesis being shrouded in mystery, its contemporary performances largely unknown, and its subsequent history one of disgraceful editing and actual abuse, at least from a historical and musicological standpoint. No existing score in Purcell's hand has been found, the music to the Prologue and some of Act II is lost to this day, and efforts to uncover the compositional backstory of the piece have been largely unsuccessful. And yet Dido and Aeneas still rightfully holds it head high, and inspires its British countrymen to do the same, as one of the harbingers of an art form which would revolutionize music and theater and which remains culturally relevant to this day.

The best historical evidence seems to point to a production date of sometime between 1685 and 1689 for the premiere of Dido and Aeneas. Obviously inspired by and sharing several elements in common with John Blow's Venus and Adonis, another early English work which competes with Dido for the title of "first real British opera," Dido and Aeneas may have been written for the ascension of William and Mary to the throne, although the opera's main plot point of a male monarch leaving his queen (even under the enchantment of evil spirits) may argue against this chronology. Perhaps a more likely allegorical subject would be James II in the place of Aeneas, and in fact Nahum Tate, whose play Brutus of Alba, or The Enchanted Lovers provided the source material for the libretto, is on record stating as much. One way or the other, it's clear that Purcell wanted the mythic aspects of the original characters in Vergil's Aenead to reference extracurricular subjects, as it were.

Sarah Connolly

This is a charmingly small scale piece, and the Royal Opera House's 2009 production of it hews closely to those more modest ambitions. Unlike Purcell's "multimedia" extravaganzas like King Arthur, Dido and Aeneas is intentionally slighter in its theatricality, if not in its music. In fact musically this is quite an innovative piece, with sometimes alarming flights of chromaticism coloring Purcell's compositional vocabulary. While Dido and Aeneas is justly famous for some of its most gorgeous arias ("When I am laid in earth," the Act III masterpiece which prefigures modern day musical theater's "eleven o'clock numbers"), Purcell consistently finds unexpected color and drama in his recitatives, which are consistently innovative and striking.

While Dido may be remembered as being at least one of the progenitors of the modern opera, this striking production, directed and choreographed by Wayne McGregor, may well be most remembered for its rather unusual use of dance, especially in the third act, which springs to terpsichorean life with members of the Royal Ballet. This actually may belie the opera's origin as "simply" a sung piece of theater, but it makes this production perhaps more viscerally entertaining for a modern day audience. The always wonderful Sarah Connolly brings her full throated mezzo to the role of Dido and Lucas Meachem is an appealing Aeneas in a role which due to Nahum Tate's rather lopsided libretto, never really reaches the dramatic heights the main distaff character does.

Chief among the delights of this production is the gorgeous playing, especially in the continuo, of the Orechestra of the Age of Enlightenment under the magnificent direction of Christopher Hogwood. This is music which breathes, fully alive with incredible nuance and brilliantly aware playing. Jan Cizmár's theorbo playing is especially remarkable, blending beautifully with Julian Perkins' harpsichord, Andrew Skidmore's cello and Steven Moore's chamber organ. This kind of period ambience ably abets the production's historical verisimilitude and immerses the audience in a sound world of the late 17the century.

Dido and Aeneas may strike those used to the "grand" part of grand opera as being simply too simple and, frankly, direct to ever achieve the sort of hyperbolic emotional content that later behemoths of the 18th and 19th centuries regularly strutted on stage. And yet that very simplicity is part of this opera's innate charm and even its allure. The simple drama of two mythic characters trapped in a tragic romance doesn't necessarily need an abundance of stagecraft, or a Wagner sized orchestra to make its dramatic point. Sometimes less is more and this spare but often emotionally devastating production proves that England has nothing to be ashamed of in its own operatic history.

Purcell: Dido & Aeneas Blu-ray, Video Quality

 

Dido and Aeneas arrives courtesy of Opus Arte with a generally fine 1080i/AVC encoded transfer. This is not an eye popping piece of theater, which may lead some viewers to conclude that the Blu-ray itself lacks definition. Told largely in hues of gray and brown, and with very little stagecraft involved, there isn't a lot here that pops off the screen and screams "high definition spectacular"! And yet, there is abundant fine detail here, in such things as Sarah Connolly's long hair and some of the elegantly spare costumes. Contrast is strong and consistent and black levels are similarly excellent. This will not knock anyone's socks off from a high def standpoint, but it is a strong and completely clear transfer, providing an accurate reproduction of a very lean staging.

Purcell: Dido & Aeneas Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 

As is usual with these excellent Opus Arte releases, we are treated to crystal clear LPCM 5.1 and 2.0 soundtracks. As with the physical production, Purcell's music itself is smaller scale than typical opera fans may be used to, but it is delivered with really stunning clarity here, especially in the continuo sections, where each individual instrument rings through the front channels with amazing clarity. This is a sound world full of abundantly sharp, high frequencies in such instruments as the theorbo and harpsichord, and the 5.1 rendering presents them with a transparence and lack of brittleness which is very appealing. The singing is also magnficent, if the florid melismas make understanding some of the words a bit challenging (though there are optional English subtitles which help in that regard). The 2.0 fold down is actually more appealing than these stereo mixes often are by virtue of the opera's smaller scale instrumentation. While I personally found the 5.1 preferable, at least in terms of hall ambience and better separation, my hunch is few people will complain at all about the stereo option.

Purcell: Dido & Aeneas Blu-ray, Special Features and Extras

 

Aside from the usual illustrated synopsis and cast gallery, there's a 10 minute interview with director Wayne McGregor. The insert booklet also contains a good essay giving some history on the opera.

Purcell: Dido & Aeneas Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation

 

Feeling overwhelmed by Wagner, Puccini and Verdi? Take a breather with Purcell, then. This "kinder and gentler" trip through a mythic world filled with lovers wronged by the evil forces surrounding them shows the nascent strands of sung theater beginning to take shape under the guidance of a vastly underappreciated master. This excellent production combining the forces of the Royal Ballet and Royal Opera does Purcell's masterpiece proud.