0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Delightful rendition of Dido and Aeneas, July 24, 2011
This review is from: Dido and Aeneas [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)
I am totally in favor of this recording (unlike the prevoius commentator) From the beginning, when we see the prologue spoken by Fiona Shaw linking together several myths of ancient Greece with so much wit and panache, we realize that we will have a great artistic experience through the entire show.
The little children who so much annoyed the previous commentator, are nothing more, nothing less, what Purcell had in mind when he composed the opera to be performed at the Josias Priest's girls' school in London in 1688. They do not harm the performance; on the contrary, they add commedy, drama, pathos when and wherever is needed.
The singers are for the most part outstanding and very aware of the baroqque style of singing (little vibrato in the voice and no trills). The short and thankless part of Aeneas is taken by Christopher Maltman, who rally looks like he is in love with Dido and annoyed by being a pawn of the gods and sings with conviction. And the Dido of Malena Erman is superb! What control of breath and legato. And listen to her pianissimi during the lament. I was very impressed and she gets 5 stars for her performance. The sorceress and her witches don't awake terror (which the previous commentator so much missed) but I am happy with the tremendous irony, arrogance, and humor that they bring to the stage everytime they are on it.
William Chritie and his Les Arts Florissants are nothing short of magnificent. I already knew his approach thanks to the CD recording that he and his forces had recorded about a decade ago, and I knew what I was going to get and I am not disapointed. He excells in this repertory and if he re-touched the score, even better, since he knows and he is capable. On the other hand, that is normally done since there is no definitive score of Dido and Aeneas.
Stage production and direction is what one can expect after the Eurotrash revolution (for the most part, thankfully, in the past): Victorian dresses and minimal staging. Direction is straight and believable.
I loved this set and highly recommend it!
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3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Dido Sacrificed in Blue, January 30, 2010
This review is from: Dido and Aeneas [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)
Vergil called his epic poem THE AENEID, and it's all about how Aeneas the Trojan fled from his destroyed city, faced numerous dangers and ultimately landed in Latium to plant there the Roman race. One episode, in Book Four (of Twelve) is a brief stop in Carthage for a one-night stand (in a cave, during a storm) with Dido, the foundress of the city. The episode is fraught with nuance, since Rome would eventually destroy Carthage. Aeneas himself is pure legend, but Dido is based on a historical personage, the princess Elissa, who fled Phoenicia after the death of her father and went to North Africa to found Carthage.
Purcell called his opera DIDO AND AENEAS -- Dido first, because it's all about Dido, whose grief for her father is the starting point of the opera, and whose suicide is the end of it. This production, however, has a spoken prologue about Echo and Narcissus, which is quite funny, but hardly sets the tone for Dido's grief in the opening scene. The accompanying booklet tells something about it, but as long as there was fated to be a spoken prologue, it might as well have introduced this opera instead of some other one. In fact, a little something about where Aeneas came from wouldn't have been a bad idea, since his tragic past and portentous future are less well known to audiences today than in Purcell's time.
The children stomping about the stage both during the prologue and during the opera itself are cute for about a split second. Purcell probably thought, like everyone else of his time, that children should be seen and not heard. The Phoenicians and Carthaginians had a horrendous practice of child sacrifice, which the Hebrews and Romans considered abominable, but at the half-hour point of the production had there been a clip inserted of the temple of Moloch scene from the silent film CABIRIA, it might have provided some comic relief. Here the Queen herself is sacrificed, along with Purcell and his music, instead of the children.
Several times the children scream beautifully, reminding one of the Nibelungen in Das Rheingold. Where is Alberich when one needs him?
The children are not the only ones creating stage noises during all the orchestral portions. The adults do a moderate amount of stomping as well. Horror vacui is one thing, but the production seems to be characterized by horror musicae. William Christie and Les Arts Florissants are major exponents of baroque music, and Purcell is considered the greatest British composer of all time. So why the disrespect?
I cannot compare this with the other blu-ray production, which I have not seen. After my friend watched and I endured this blu-ray, we both watched with pleasure the SD-DVD of the film version with Maria Ewing. The level of singing is better on that one, and the acting more serious, and the costumes and scenery more appropriate. (Bare stage is the polar opposite of the baroque aesthetic.) The sorceress in that production is filled with bile and seems dangerous enough to cause real trouble; in this one, she is comic figure hardly competent to manage any scenarii of national importance, like the fall of Carthage or the rise of Rome. She has more in common with Wagner's Kundry than with Vergil's Juno.
One final complaint: one pays $30-$40 for only a little over sixty minutes of blu-ray here, counting the 23-minute interview. Even if this Dido had been superior to the original, the price-per-minute is pretty steep. A friend of mine won't buy a CD with fewer than 60 minutes of playing time. Purcell has a lot of other music, and William Christie has recorded a lot of it. The person who is drawn to DIDO AND AENEAS would no doubt have been enthused by the addition of some high-resolution audio recordings of other Purcell works, such as the wonderful early FANTAZIAS, or some of the theatrical music from other productions such as DIOCLESIAN. I hate to post negative reviews, but this package offers way less than half the material that can fit on a blu-ray, and what is there is way less than half what the material itself deserves.
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