The challenge for any opera recording in sound alone is to convey
the drama without at times becoming hammy on the one hand or simply
purely distilled, abstract melody on the other.
This Dido and
Aeneas vividly balances the expressiveness of both drama
and melody. The opening slow episode of the Overture shines
sadly and thoughtfully, like Dido’s state of mind, yet its
quick section is both nervous and full of life, suggesting
the potential of a positive outcome. As Belinda, Lucy Crowe’s
‘Shake the cloud from off your brow’ (tr. 2) conveys with
its ornamentation all the richness of the court but also in
her singing solicitude for her sister Dido. The court chorus
‘Banish sorrow, banish care’ gives forthright, pacy advice.
As throughout this production, they project freshly, their
manner is credible and takes the action forward.
Dido enters with
her aria ‘Ah! Belinda, I am prest with torment’ (tr. 3). Sarah
Connolly is the third Chandos Dido. The first, featuring
the Taverner Choir and Players/Andrew Parrott (CHAN 8306)
was recorded in 1981 with Emma Kirkby as Dido, in young, bright
voice, all pearly clarity and ingenuousness, characterized
as a girl somewhat out of her depth. The second recording
with Collegium Musicum 90/Richard Hickox (CHAN0586), made
in 1995, finds Maria Ewing as Dido with a more dramatic, darkly
coloured approach, a responsible queen who is also in pain
because of her longing for Aeneas. Her more measured delivery,
the aria timing at 3:50 in comparison with Kirkby’s 3:19 and
Connolly’s 3:14, suggests a degree of indulgence in the mood.
For further comments on Ewing’s account, see my review
of its release on DVD (Warner NVC Arts 50 51442 882223).
In the CD now
under review Sarah Connolly conveys both majesty and fragility,
beginning with a natural intimacy and yet still a sense of
reserve, unveiled a little by her increased ornamentation
on the repeat of the first phrase. In other words, ornamentation
is an intrinsic part of the expression, not just something
applied. Connolly’s fine breath control in the long melisma
on ‘languish’ creates a vivid picture and a very slight slowing
at ‘Peace and I are strangers grown’ seals the sense of sorrow,
held in the following orchestral ritornello. But at that point
(3:53) comes some extra music which derives from Connolly’s
experience of earlier productions, the Air from Bonduca,
Z574/4 as inserted by Attilio Cremonesi in Sasha Waltz’s choreographic
opera version of Dido. This production, though not
a performance in which Connolly took part, is available on
DVD (Arthaus Musik 101311, review).
There it provides a tender, moving extended look at Dido’s
state of mind, its inner conflict depicted by two dancers.
But here, in sound alone, for me its extra 2:47 of melancholic
reflection disturbs that equipoise established from the Overture
between sadness and prospective joy. And unlike most of the
later additions on this CD there’s no authority for this one
in the printed libretto.
What is well balanced
in this performance is the recitative by being flexible in
tempo to match the variations of mood: becoming slower and
more reflective at Belinda’s ‘the Trojan guest/Into your tender
thoughts has prest’ (tr. 4) and more lively and excited for
Dido’s ‘Whence could so much virtue spring?’ (tr. 5). Her
passage beginning ‘Mine with storms of care opprest’ moves
from vigour through tender empathy to anguish with a comparable
range of expressiveness to that of Kirsten Flagstad in her
1952 recording (EMI 5096902, review)
though Connolly doesn’t sound quite as spontaneous. Gerald
Finley’s Aeneas is manly but you also feel he’s graced by
fame, quietly, inherently, not vauntingly heroic and in this
more likable than the suave David Thomas in 1981 and novice
approach of Karl Daymond in 1995.
There’s more ‘extra’
music, an orchestral repeat of ‘Fear no danger to ensue’ (tr.
5), not actually necessary because the chorus already repeats
what starts as Belinda and the Second Woman’s duet but a rousing
tune. The Gittars Chacony (tr. 9) added next, based on a chaconne
by Francesco Corbetta, court guitarist to Charles II in the
1670s, is for me more of a liability. Indicated in the printed
libretto but not later sources it halts the momentum between
Belinda’s eager ‘Pursue thy conquest, Love’ (tr. 8), magnificently
stoked by Lucy Crowe’s lively ornamentation and crowned by
changing the head of the final ‘Pursue’ refrain from D to
top G, and the chorus ‘To the hills and the vales’ (tr. 10)
whose sudden, eager attack appears to interrupt it. Act 1
finishes with genuine Purcell, a light-heartedly swinging
orchestral Triumphing Dance (tr.11), the inner parts well
balanced but the edge taken from the rejoicing by thunder
(1:04) that rather pre-empts the witches conjuring the storm
later (tr. 16).
Nevertheless in
Act 2 Scene 1 Patricia Bardon’s Sorceress is a formidable,
larger than life presence, a kind of rival Queen to Dido as
intended, aided by her embellishment of the vocal line, especially
at ‘Deprived of fame’ (tr. 13 0:23) where she goes
down an octave to middle C and then sketches an ascent to
the written C. The choruses of witches are perhaps a little
too polished but scarily proficient. The witches’ duet, ‘But
ere we this perform’ (tr. 14) has a spiteful precision about
it. In the echo chorus (tr. 15) the echo effect is cleanly
achieved by having the echo group distanced but not distorted.
However, to keep the listener in suspense, on two occasions
(0:12, 0:54) there’s a momentary black hole of a pause before
the ‘echo’. The same techniques are appropriately applied
to the orchestra in the Echo Dance of Furies (tr. 16) with
the black hole at 0:48. Then at 0:55 it seems as if the strings
are beginning to play some Peter Maxwell Davies. Though not
flagged in the booklet, this is to convey what the early manuscript
sources term ‘Horrid music’ and thunder is here in its proper
place.
A pleasingly relaxed
Ritornelle (tr. 17) opening Act 2 Scene 2 makes a rare period
of repose. Belinda’s ‘Thanks to these lonesome vales’ (tr.
18) comes munificently ornamented which allows the choral
repeat to be more sparing and direct, though thereafter elaborated
a little in its own repeat. Then another interpolation, a
Guitars Passacaille (tr. 19), a rather melancholy improvisation
on a passacaille by Louis XIV’s guitarist Robert de Visée.
I don’t begrudge this 3:05 as it provides a little more regal
repose before the contrast of the Second Woman’s more dramatic
ground bass foundation piece, ‘Oft she visits this lone mountain’
(tr. 20). Belinda’s ‘Haste, haste to town’ and its choral
repeat (tr. 21) are despatched with crisp and light efficiency
which makes the Spirit’s message to Aeneas (tr. 22), delivered
in ethereal countertenor tone by William Purefoy, more of
a contrast. Aeneas’ response in his only arioso, that he will
leave Dido, is superbly sung by Finley, finely blending resolution
and despair and with a moving climax. The lost chorus ‘Then
since our charms have sped’ (tr. 23) featured here has been
composed by Bruce Wood, an effective piece, complementing
the other witches’ choruses in its industrious nature and
boosting it with a lively internal instrumental passage. I
wish he had composed the Groves’ Dance too because the Magicians’
Dance from Circe, Z575/5 slotted in here is a bit prim
for “A dance that shall make the spheres to wonder”.
The beginning
of Act 3 Scene 1 is all sprightly and salty whether instrumental
Prelude, the sailor’s song freshly delivered by John Mark
Ainsley, or chorus. The First and Second Witches triumphantly
elongate their articulation in turn of the phrase ‘Elissa’s
ruin’d’ amid their skittering ‘ho-ho’s. They and the witches’
choruses are effectively grisly without being hammy. The libretto
has no indication of any music between Scene 1 and 2 but Steven
Devine plays the Almand from Purcell’s Second Suite for harpsichord,
Z661/2 (tr. 28). This is a fine, sombre piece and gives us
some breathing space as we travel from the quayside to Dido’s
Palace, from bright exterior to gloomy interior, from B flat
major to G minor, from joyous conviviality to sorrowing solitude.
But 4 minutes’ breathing space is perhaps overdoing it. Cutting
the repeats would for me have provided a sufficient 2 minutes.
Where there is a fine sense of space is in the confrontational
final duet between a fiery Dido here and an at first contrite
Aeneas who then draws in and takes on board her passion but
is rejected. Dido then realizes her death is imminent and
Connolly suddenly and graphically becomes soft, sorrowful
and melting. The chorus ‘Great minds against themselves conspire’
(tr.29) is here both creamily reflective and the beginning
of the funeral rites. Connolly’s recitative ‘Thy hand, Belinda,
darkness shades me’ (tr. 30) has an epic grandeur, poise and
poignancy, her Lament simplicity and nobility, elaborated
in the repeat of the opening section but with sensitivity
and the majesty of sheer artistry. The repeat of the second
section is also softer at first but the final ‘Remember me’
rings out more in protest before the statement tails off as
if in despair and the closing ritornello is given a funereal
drag. This account of recitative and Lament is more spacious
than its Chandos predecessors, timing at 5:05 in comparison
with Ewing’s 4:55 and Kirkby’s 4:07, but Connolly shows both
something of the pathos of Kirkby’s pure transparency and
fragility of Ewing’s emotive anguish. The final chorus is
delivered at first with respectful probity, its repeat is
a touch more freely expressive.
The St Silas acoustic
is very airy. In sum this is an impressive performance of
all round excellence, but the added music is controversial.
Michael
Greenhalgh
Dido: Sarah
Connolly (mezzo) 
