Purcell: Dido and Aeneas / James, Lewis, Baker, Herincx
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CD Details
Composer: Henry PurcellConductor: Anthony Lewis
Performer: Thurston Dart
Performer: Janet Baker
Orchestra: English Chamber Orchestra
Performer: Monica Sinclair
Performer: Patricia Clark
Performer: Raimund Herincx
Edition: Music CD
Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2000-04-11
Music Label: Decca
Soundtracks:
- Overture
- Act 1: "Shake the cloud from off your brow"
- Act 1: "Ah! Belinda, I am prest with torment"
- Act 1: "Whence could so much virtue spring?"
- Act 1: "Fear no danger to ensue"
- Act 1: "See, your royal guest appears"
- Act 2: Prelude for the Witches - Wayward sisters
- Act 2: "Ruin'd ere the set of sun?"
- Act 2: Ritornelle - "Thanks to these lonesome vales"
- Act 2: "Oft she visits this lone mountain"
- Act 2: "Behold, upon my bending spear"
- Act 2: "Stay, Prince, and hear great Jove's command"
- Act 3: Prelude - "Come away, fellow sailors"
- Act 3: "See the flags and streamers curling"
- Act 3: "Your counsel all is urg'd in vain"
- Act 3: "But Death, alas!... When I am laid in earth"
- Act 3: "With drooping wings ye Cupids come"
Music reviews of Purcell: Dido and Aeneas / James, Lewis, Baker, Herincx
Music Review: Pompous & ponderous
Rating: 1 Stars
I adore this opera but it can be so much more. The singing here is good but for me wrong for this work; and its overall effectiveness as a drama is even less than the sum of the parts. The treacly richness of the 1961 Lewis/Baker treatment cloys: full, vibrato-laden vocals smother the sprightly, impish music. The characters' self-importance is wearisome. They try too hard to wring out every drop of emotion. This overburdens the libretto and deadens the drama. The stodgy pacing clogs the narrative flow, which is especially unfortunate around the Act II climactic turning point (Oft she visits - Behold, Upon my Bending Spear, and surrounding pieces). Here it literally loses the plot. We should feel growing excitement and intensity as Purcell and Tate cleverly build up portents of danger with poignant classical allusions, until the mood crashes down into panic as the inevitability of her fate dawns on Dido in a sudden crisis moment; instead, we amble along gloomily. Purcell's work is a touchingly human tragedy. But Lewis' `heroic' characters lose our sympathy by taking themselves too seriously.
Happily there are many less bosomy alternatives: Pinnock and Jacobs are enjoyable, and the Amps/Naxos is mostly excellent. William Christie's full-voiced version is fresh and mercurial: almost as good as my favourite, Hogwood's pacy and dramatically well-judged interpretation. The recent Connolly/Finley offering is more in the Lewis vein but not bad despite its languours, though less sensuous and zesty than Currentzis/the New Siberian Singers.
Janet Baker's famous Dido was in Berlioz' Les Troyens. I have not heard this work but perhaps it is more suited to the Classical-Romantic heart-on-sleeve treatment?
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