Customer Reviews

Purcell: Dido and Aeneas / James, Lewis, Baker, Herincx

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you're thinking of exploring baroque opera, this opera, and more especially this recording, makes a brilliant introduction - not too expensive, easily enjoyable, and with great singing all round. But of course, for 5 stars it would need to be more than that... and it most certainly is.

This recording rates in my mind as one of the greatest achievements in all opera. Dame Janet Baker is simply breathtaking as Dido - she portrays all the noble tragedy of the part, and I guarantee her aching rendition of the famous lament will raise a few tears. This is undoubtedly her finest recording (rating with the tremendous and foolishly underrated Mackerras Messiah).

As for the more controversial portrayals - those of Aeneas and the Sorceress - I personally agree full heartedly with the casting. Herincx 'gruff' manner is in fact perfect for the role, Aeneas is after all a rough and tumble warriorman, is he not? And besides, the A minor recitative at the end of the second act is executed with stunning beauty. As for Monica Sinclair's Sorceress, what a characterful performance! Her somewhat ugly, vicious singing of the part contrasts superbly with the pure nobility of Dido. I suppose it is similar in some ways to Stolze's Mime on the Solti Siegfried - really a matter of taste.

Baker, Sinclair and Herincx receive tremendous support from supporting cast and chorus. The chorus is asked to fulfill a number of roles, and all are done commendably. Lewis' direction of the ECO, which though predating the advent of period performance still achieves a lithe and often stirring texture, and Thurston Dart's stylish execution of the harpsichord continuo round out a unsurpassed and faultless performance.

A must.

Janet Baker's performance of Dido's Lament is absolutely stunning in its emotional intensity and would be enough to make this performance unforgettable. But there is more to commend this recording. Baker's vocal clarity, and of all of the other characters, is another outstanding feature of this CD. The chorus is first-rate throughout this recording, especially at the end, as they sing, "With drooping wings ye Cupids come, and scatter roses on her tomb . . . " Although another reviewer has commented that he finds Raimund Herincx's voice as Aeneas too gruff, I find powerful, moving, and thoroughly convincing, as when he lowers his voice and sings in a voice that is anything but gruff, "but with more ease could die."

It's true, as one of the other reviewers comments, that there is something about Monica Sinclair's voice and enunciation as the Sorceress that reminds one a bit of the Wicked Witch of the West and gives her performance an air of contrived theatricality, making her supposed malevolence less than convincing. But the other aspects of this performance are so outstanding that this one reservation is not enough to lower my rating below a 5.

The performance of the English Chamber Orchestra and of Thurston Dart on harpsichord are also of the highest quality.

The quality of the sound from this analog recording made in 1961 is outstanding; the sound engineers who have made this 24-bit digital remastering are truly to be commended.

The CD booklet contains photos of Janet Baker and Raimund Herincx, the entire libretto, and two well-written and informative essays, the first by Alan Blyth on Janet Baker, with an analysis of her singing, and the second by one of the original performers on this recording, Thurston Dart (harpsichord), on the story and music of this beautiful opera.
Very highly recommended.

In my not very humble opinion, no one has sung this role better than Dame Janet. For nobility of expression, intensity of feeling, tonal beauty and almost unendurable grief she is unmatched. If you are unaware of the artistry of Janet Baker, this is an excellent place to start your discovery of one of the greatest, and now - sadly - somewhat forgotten, interpretive artists of our time. You owe it to yourself.

By a coincidence, an opera company I am allied with was preparing a "youth" production of Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas" at the very time I received a copy of the 1961 production which is now part of the EMI Legendary Performances series: <Dido & Aeneas> (289 466 387 -2). So I was very interested in the vocal interpretations of these characters whose stories were assumed to be known by librettist Nahum Tate and whose traits had to be sketched strongly and quickly by the composer. Scarcely any time for deep personality development in the 55 minutes this play takes up.

Janet Baker is a marvel in the role of Dido, as the earlier commentators never tired of saying; and what she does vocally to create a believable person should be assigned listening for all singers--and not only those playing Dido. She gets tremendous help from the English Chamber Orchestra and St. Anthony's Singers under Anthony Lewis, whose brisk pacing never lets the score lag, and from a good Belinda in Patricia Clark.

I cannot say much for the Aeneas of Raimund Herincx, whose voice is far too gruff for both the character and the style of singing, which is out of synch with that of the others. Another drawback is the Sorceress of Monica Sinclair (who might be familiar to many as the contralto in most of the EMI Gilbert & Sullivan recordings from the late 1950s and early 1960s). We have no idea if Purcell meant her to be comic, but the use of a Wicked Witch of the West voice simply does not work in this opera. Indeed it would not work even in "Hansel and Gretel"!

But Baker steals the show and hearing her performance is a prerequisite to understanding this opera fully.

Dido & Aeneas is such an important work, and this recording is indeed so significant, that some historical background is necessary to have the full appreciation of the role of this opera in the world of operatic music.

English opera in the seventeenth century was rooted in the masque. The main interest of the masque, like the French court ballet, was its costumes and spectacle. Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, a direct descendant of the masque, was, instead, a true opera--it is sung throughout.

Although masques flourished in the first half of the century under James I and Charles I, during the Commonwealth under Cromwell (1649-1660) masques were no longer given publicly. (They were, however, performed in schools, as was Dido and Aeneas.) Purcell was born in 1659, a year before the Restoration of Charles II, just in time for the professional theater to return, in an altered form, from its exile. To get around the Puritans, authors of these new works, which now introduced movable scenery, a front curtain drawn up rather than parted, and an orchestra in front of the stage, still declined to call them "operas," or even "theater,' but rather "A Representation by the Art of Prospective in Scenes and the Story Sung in Recitative Musick' Such slippery semantics managed to disguise the fact that these were indeed forbidden theatrical productions.

Charles II was influenced by French music and even tried to lure Lully from Paris to his court. French music, especially the form of its overtures, as well as English folksongs, Italian recitative, pastorals, choruses, word painting, ground basses, mid-Baroque fugal writing, and the "agitated style" of theatrical music all influenced Purcell. All are found in Dido and Aeneas. The most significant influence was that of his teacher, John Blow, who had written Venus and Adonis in 1682. Blow's opera combines these same ingredients successfully, and Purcell and Tate "went to school" on it.

The similarity between the two works is striking: both are in three acts with a French-style allegorical prologue; each recounts an ill-fated relationship between a dominant, imperious woman and a vain, foolish man; almost uniquely among 17th-century operas, both end tragically with the death of a protagonist. They use dances to articulate the drama, and in each the chorus plays an integral role (as courtiers, huntsmen, Cupids, witches, sailors, etc.). Purcell borrowed several melodic details from Blow and even alluded to his teacher's opera in Act II, scene 2 (the Grove Scene), where Aeneas enters with a "monster's head" impaled on his spear; Adonis's death upon the tusks of the Aedalian boar is thus whimsically avenged.

Venus and Adonis was composed for the entertainment of King Charles II, with his former mistress Mary Davis and their illegitimate daughter Lady Mary Tudor singing the roles of Venus and Cupid, respectively. No such details are known of Dido, though it too has royal connections. The prologue (the music of which is lost) is generally assumed to allude to the Glorious Revolution. Phoebus, who enters in a chariot borne across the sea (the English Channel?), could represent Prince William invading Britain in 1688, while Venus, who descends later in the scene, could symbolize Princess Mary, who joined her husband in London after the revolution. These deities represent the new political order, and the choice of Venus as protagonist was especially felicitous, because in 17th-century British political mythology, the goddess had adopted Britain as her home (in the words of Purcell's song Fairest isle, "Venus here will choose her dwelling,/And forsake her Cyprian grove"). Dido may therefore have been designed to celebrate the coronation of William and Mary on 11 April 1689.

The first known performance of Dido & Aeneas was by the "young gentlewomen" of Josias Priest's boarding school at Chelsea in spring 1689; Dido was then set aside until 1700, when it was inserted into an adaptation of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Virtually nothing more is known of the early history of Dido, except that Dryden, without naming Purcell, later remarked that the story of Aeneas at Carthage was too big a subject even for opera. But it is barely credible that Purcell, widely acknowledged by his contemporaries as the greatest composer of the age, the librettist Nahum Tate, soon to become poet laureate, and Thomas Durfey (who wrote the epilogue), the most successful playwright of his generation, would have collaborated on a mere end-of-term musical only for the innocent entertainment of Mr. Priest's pupils and their parents.

The choice of a girls' boarding school as the venue for such an auspicious occasion is partly explained by P. A. Hopkins's recent discovery o a printed libretto of Venus and Adonis dated 17 April 1684: "An Opera Perform'd before the KING. Afterwards at Mr. Josias Preist's Boarding School at Chelsey. By Young Gentlewomen." Blow's original score had evidently been arranged for an all-female cast, which included Priest's daughter as Adonis. The discovery has important implications for Dido. The new libretto establishes a close connection between the court at Whitehall and the Chelsea boarding school, which seems to have catered for the daughters of the rich and powerful. More importantly, the Venus libretto suggests that Dido too may have originated as a court entertainment with a mixed cast of men and women and was afterwards arranged for the girls of Priest's school. This could account for the apparent discrepancy between Tate's libretto, which specifically states that the opera was performed "by young gentlewomen", and the existence of the baritone Aeneas as well as the tenor and bass parts of Purcell's choruses, which could hardly be performed by girls.

Several mysteries surround Dido, however. When exactly was it written? Was it possibly an allegory for events in the reign of James II? And we do not inherit a copy of the score in Purcell's hand. (We do have the original printed libretto.) It is agreed that the opera was never performed publicly in Purcell's short lifetime.

Some scholars have interpreted the opera itself politically in a few ways:
1). As a cautionary tale of a monarch who abandons his queen with tragic result -- a warning to King William of the possible consequences of neglecting his wife and his new kingdom. Not only does Tate's libretto refer to dynastic union (as in the first-act chorus "When monarchs unite, how happy their state,/They triumph at once o'er their foes and their fate"), but the story of Dido and Aeneas had often been applied to British politics during the 17th century; for example the cry that Amsterdam was a Carthage to Britain's Rome was heard in 1672 during time Second Dutch War. While such a negative message would seem a tasteless way to celebrate the recent coronation, it may help explain Tate's major alteration of his source, the Aeneid, Book IV: in Virgil the gods command Aeneas to leave Carthage to fulfill his destiny in Latium, while in the opera the Sorceress and her witches (Tate's inventions) trick Aeneas into leaving Dido purely in order to destroy her, their only motivation being a desire to do mischief.

2). The witchcraft, which at the time carried connotations of Roman Catholic ritual, could thus symbolize the resurgence of popery, which posed the greatest threat to the stability of the new British monarchy in the person of the Catholic King James II, who had been overthrown in the same year the libretto was written - in 1689. In a poem written in 1686, the librettist Tate had alluded to James II as Aeneas, and in that work the allegory was so constructed as to imply that James had been led down the wrong path by the evil machinations of a witch and her assistants, as a result of which he abandoned the British people, symbolized by Dido. The support for this interpretation lies in the historical fact that James II fled to Italy and lived in Rome, just as Aeneas goes to Italy and founds Rome.

The tonal scheme of the opera centers on G minor and thus conforms to Purcell's private title of key associations: time and again in his dramatic music, G minor is used to symbolize death; F minor is (not only for Purcell) the key of witches, horror and the supernatural; C major (a trumpet key) was often associated with hollow triumph; and so forth. Given the limited number of keys available to a late 17th-century composer, one should perhaps not push this analysis too far; neither should one underestimate the significance of G minor in Purcell's vocal music.

The chief source of Dido's greatness lies in its arias; in this respect Dido is very modern. In John Blow opera, Venus has almost no arias (being comprised of recitative, ariosos and choruses), while in Lully's operas the airs are diminutive and usually embedded in long scenes of récit. Purcell was obviously aware of recent trends in Venetian opera, in which musical interest was now concentrated mainly in da capo arias. In fact, Dido's first piece, "Ah! Belinda", is in da capo form, despite being written over a ground bass. Dido's other aria, "When I am laid in earth", is also based on an Italian model -- the Lament-- a cliché of Venetian opera, complete with descending tetrachord, a common basso ostinato.

Dido includes two other pieces based on grounds: the Triumphing Dance in Act I and the deceptively difficult "Oft she visits", sung by an attendant in the Grove Scene. Undisputed master of the ground bass, Purcell was never confined by the inherent rhythmic and harmonic strictures of the bass pattern; he often varied or transposed it to other keys during the course of a piece (though Dido's Lament remains in G minor throughout). Perhaps Purcell relied so heavily on grounds in Dido because they ensured both the coherence and length which modern opera demanded of arias.

This recording is marvelous; Janet Baker is such a believable Dido - regal and somewhat weak, too - her rendering of "When I am laid on earth" is heartbreaking; you can really hear a heart mortally wounded, full of incurable pain; she is crying. For comparison, Anne Sofie von Otter in Trevor Pinnock's recording is a queen made of steel, somewhat saddened, but staying distant and controlling. Baker is so much more in the character of Dido.

I also love the Sorceress and the witches here the best. The first bars of `Wayward witches" here are incomparable - the grinning menacing female voice (which to me is the best, it must be a woman singing this part, as it is written originally for mezzo, not a man, as in Pinnock's version and what remains his own invention), and that voice and accompaniment suddenly sound Gypsy-like! That was absolutely genius musically, to depict witches evil-playing character. The Sorceress's music is curious because it consists almost entirely of recitative accompanied by four-part strings, a texture which contemporaneous German composers typically reserved for the utterances of Christ.

And as the scene proceeds, witches laugh so convincingly; they conjure up in mind the Witches Sabbath picture by Goya, so vividly their elaborate witchcraft is delivered here. The whole scene amounts to an illustration of the insidious beauty of movement which can attend the course of evil just as surely as that of good. I think Verdi must have known of these witches for his "Macbeth". How much more compact and overabundant in art and skill this short opera in making an unforgettable impression on the listeners than endless, amorphous, structurless Berlioz "Les Troyens" - demonstrating once more the superiority of Baroque musical art over s19th century operatic music.

Story-wise, Dido turns out to be the weakest Queen of antiquity. There are a few other legendary heroines who had been abandoned by men whom they saved, helped, supported through ordeals - we know of Calypso, Alcina, Armida, Medea, Ariadne. Yet why would it be only Dido who commits suicide because of the ungrateful traitor? Perhaps her isolated life on island, just as Calypso's, intensifies the feeling of the totality of the lover's loss; on her island she seems to be unaware of the human nature, otherwise she would know that Aeneas is one of many others, he is like Ulisse, Rinaldo, Jason, Teseus - a man who is weak and deeply egocentric, but whose baseness is passed as an obedience to the divine will. The legend of Ulysses is probably the most interesting psychologically out of all of them, because it depicts such a character in all its controversy, starting from the lack of intelligence, and consequently his fragility, treachery, vanity, and many other countless flaws that make him a common man, closest to reality, as Aeneas probably was - just a man, not a king, not a god, but a shipwreck survivor who happened to be at the right place at the right time. The chorus describes the disaster in just a few lines between Aeneas departure and Dido's swan song: "Great minds against themselves conspire, /And shun the cure they most desire".

Ironically, it is in Rome, the city that Aeneas founded, there is one great picture in Palazzo Spada - Guercino's "The Death of Dido". While the unfortunate woman is stretching herself on a terrible wooden pyre, a courtier on the left is pointing to her in bewilderment, almost as saying - look at this woman; she is Queen - where is her pride and dignity? She should remain composed and resolute, with a royal character, and it is pathetic and unseemly for Queen to have such a meltdown because of an ungrateful lowly and base passerby.

However, this would be perhaps Alcina's line, and it is another story. This one, the story of Dido, cannot be changed for a "lieto fine"; perhaps another allegorical interpretation of her story is a destruction of a kindness, generosity and love by selfishness, cruelty and brute force, the destruction of art, poetry and peace by baseness, vulgarity and banality of war, the misery of good and the triumph of malice, very much in style of "The Misfortune of Virtue, or the Prosperity of Vice" but at least her tragic image has inspired many creative minds, and here we are left with splendid music that lives through centuries, as the best living monument to the destructive power of love.

Like Dido, Purcell died too young--at only 36. If Purcell had lived longer, he could have created an English national opera to parallel the French tragedies lyriques of Lully and the long-standing Italian opera. Only a decade after Purcell's death in 1695, George Frederich Handel arrived in London to pursue his career as an opera composer. By then the public's taste had so altered that Handel wrote operas only in Italian (ironically, Handel is buried in Westminster Abbey - a place where Purcell was an organist).

Opera in English had died abruptly in England, not to reappear until the flowering of the twentieth century, including such luminaries as composer Benjamin Britten. Yet Purcell's Dido will always be remembered as the Arrival of the Queen of Carthage before Handel's Alcina and Britten's Lucrezia were born as Minervas from their creators' divine minds.

A must-hear opera for all.

I can't recommend this strongly enough to music-lovers who, like me, are not very well up in 17th century composers.

First, this opera has a good strong, clear libretto. The story moves fast, the characters and situations are strongly delineated and contrasted, the sense of developing tragedy is powerful and moving. Purcell's Dido has has the stature of Virgil's
--- regina graui iamdudum saucia cura ---
--- the queen long since wounded with a heavy care
a queen and a strong woman driven to suicide by a betrayed love, the part grandly realised by Baker. Herincx has the right idea of Aeneas too, big and 'heroic' despite needing only token prompting from the powers above to abandon Dido and anything she might have meant to him. Virgil's malevolent Juno is replaced by a stagy cast of witches and whatnot, and rightly so for greater theatricality. (I'm OK by staginess and exaggeration here.)

For those like myself whose idea of opera starts with Handel and gets going properly with Gluck, this piece is not easy listening to begin with.It has been an education to learn how the musical resources of the 17th century can be equal to a story as powerful as this. I do not comment on details of the performance as it is still unfamiliar ground to me, but I do not expect ever to find it anything except magnificent.

Henry Purcell's (1659-1695) opera "Dido and Aeneas" tells, in approximately one hour, of the frustrated passion of Dido, queen of Carthage, for the Trojan hero Aeneas, whose destiny it is to found Rome. The opera is based upon Virgil's Aeneid with a highly compressed libretto by Nahum Tate. Purcell's opera includes three parts for women and only one, Aeneas, for a male. The brief opera is in three Acts. According to "The New Grove Book of Operas", Purcell based his work on an earlier English opera, "Venus and Adonis" by John Blow. With its heavy emphasis on dance and chorus, "Dido and Aeneas" also draws heavily on French baroque opera.

This reissue of a 1961 recording of a young Janet Baker in the role of Dido is an outstanding way to get to know Purcell's only opera. Baker performed "Dido and Aeneas" many times during her career. Her voice is glowing and rich. She sings with force of Dido's initially repressed love and her soon-to-be dashed love. Interestingly, Dame Baker's most famous role was another Dido -- in Berlioz' lengthy opera, "The Trojans". Anthony Lewis conducts the English Chamber Orchestra with a supporting cast of Patricia Clark as Dido's confidante Belinda, Raimund Herincx as Aeneas and Monica Sinclair as a snarling Sorceress. I greatly enjoyed the cello obligato which permeates this opera.

For all its brevity, the opera encompasses a wide variety of emotion and scenes. The opera makes great use of the chorus. In general, after an aria by one of the principals, the chorus comments extensively, much in the manner of a Greek tragedy. Sometimes the chorus repeats the music of the soloist, but at other times it takes themes of its own. In "Dido and Aeneas" the chorus appears in scenes involving the court at Carthage, as huntsmen, witches, and sailors. It also appears at the close of the opera, following the death of Dido, in elegaic music of comfort.

In addition to his use of the chorus, Purcell uses the dance as a key element of his story. In "Dido and Aeneas", there are dance scenes displaying the love of Dido, a dance of the furies, who plot to destroy her happiness, an erotic dance for Aeneas, performed by Dido's entourage, a sailors' hornpipe, and a witches' dance in which the sorceress and her compatriots celebrate their destruction of the couple.

In the concluding scene of the opera, Janet Baker powerfully sings Dido's
sad and stark lament for the loss of Aeneas and for her impending death accompanied to a dirge-like theme in the orchestra. This is music of great tragedy.

This CD includes a complete libretto and good program notes. It is an wonderful way to experience an early operatic masterpiece.

Robin Friedman

This recording occupies a very special place in my heart. It was the first recording to show me how vast a difference there can be between a good performance and a great performance. Formerly, I had been listening to a BBC recording I had picked up for a dollar somewhere. I read that the present performance of Purcell's compact masterpiece really was special. When I received the recording as a gift, I began to see exactly what the writers of those articles meant.

Janet Baker is an amazing Dido. Her "Ah, Belinda" is chillingly beautiful. Her other large solo, the lament in Act 3, is chilling in a different way. Emotion isn't the word for it.

As Aeneas, Raimund Hernicx is occasionally rough, but always in excellent character. His deep voice suits the role well; he portrays Aeneas with much masculinity.

Patricia Clark's Belinda is lovely. Monica Sinclair gives a sinister (if slightly caricatured) Sorceress, backed well by Rhianon James and Catherine Wilson as the First and Second Witch respectively. John Mitchinson is a heady First Sailor, giving his single song ("Com away, fellow sailors") with verve.

The chorus is also fine, though the 1961 recording gives a slight edge to the male chorus at times. The English Chamber Orchestra play well under Anthony Lewis, who, though not the most distinguished in his musical decisions, still picks consistent tempi (none of this funereal "Cupid only throws the dart) and provides a pleasant variety of dynamics. Thurston Dart's support on the harpsichord is equally distinguished.

Purcell outdid himself with the music. It is compact, lovely, dramatic, everything a baroque opera should be. Whereas Berlioz takes three hours to tell the story of Dido and Aeneas (which he does excellently) in Les Troyens, Purcell takes less than one. Purcell's version concludes far more quietly, with the choral lament "With drooping wings ye Cupids come."

At the time of this writing, this Decca CD may be purchased for under $5 used. This recording should be considered classic regardless of its date. True, you'll probably have a different favorite Dido & Aeneas (seems like everybody does - there are so many approaches), but this one will always hold interest, especially for Janet Baker's splendid Dido.

Still wonderful after all these years. Dame Janet delivers the best Dido. Recording techniques are still unmatched. The orchestra is par excellent. No trendy ancient instruments here. I mean really, how do you know what they should have sounded like unless you have original musicians to play them. Something about the records from that time (1960's),they seem to have a divine influence as if it were the very voice of God speaking. I love this opera it's short,tightly structured,flowing and the template of the modern concept album; move over Tommy,Sgt Pepper and Andrew Lloyd Webber. All You Need IS Love sure sounds like Purcell to me.Triumph victorious Love Triumph of the universe.There should be a rock version of Dido, maybe a dance one and maybe even a rap one. What'd ya think? The guitar music was lost maybe Jimmy Page should be commissioned by the National Trust to do a restored version. Electric Dido!
I always play this recording this time of year. I prance about in my toga(just sheets) and sing along with all the witches chorus's. Sometimes I'll put on my sailor hat and dance around the living room...Come away fellow sailors, come come away. Have you ever realized how many songs of Purcell start out with Come? Someone should do a paper. Come come ye sons of art. come come away. Come Come Come let us leave the town. Come all the nymphs and the fauns from the woods. See what I mean?...back to Dido. One thing more that delights me...the witches win. ha-ha ha-ha ha-ha.a sort of; keep your lofty fascist boot off the neck of my nice esoteric sub-culture...just love that chorus. Buy this and it will entrance and possess you,luv! I've probably had every copy from Schwarzkoff to Will Christie.p.s. Happy Halloween! ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.Occupy Carthage!

The piece is a treasure; the singers, legends; and the recording is exquisite in recreating this hallmark performance. Alive with a depth of feelings...love's vulnerability and worries, evil's powerful delusions, the pain of parting and death..,

Simple and profound, this remarkable recording plucks the strings of our sweetest humaness.