DIDO AND AENEAS (Proms)****

 

By Imogen

Link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p08kd5cq (Radio)

Available until: 6 October 2020

There isn’t a proper Proms season this year because of the stupid coronavirus messing up everything but Radio 3 have been broadcasting repeats of old Proms and I think it’s a good idea even if they’re not showing the Proms I really want to see again. But most of them are so long ago I can’t actually remember them so it’s not like I’m thinking “Oh no not that again.” This performance is from 2003. I’m sure I look grown-up enough to remember 2003 but I actually wasn’t born then.

Dido and Aeneas is a tragedy but Richard Egarr and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment manage to make it sound quite cheerful which I think is much better than being miserable all the time. There need to be happy moments along with the sad moments. It’s more interesting that way and if you don’t know the opera it gives you hope that maybe everything will work out. Also Dido’s final aria needs to be so sad, it needs to take Dido to another level, it needs to leap out and punch you and it wouldn’t do that if the whole opera was completely miserable.

Sarah Connolly seems to be in everything we’re reviewing at the moment so it’s lucky she’s good really. My granny’s friend says Dido is a silly cow. I can see where she’s coming from. Dido thinks everything is a total disaster but it’s not really. Okay boys can be really really annoying and you do end up spending some of your time wishing either that you were dead or that they were. But unfortunately boys are an essential part of life if you happen to be attracted to them and it’s much better just to learn to put up with them and accept that even the best ones are going to behave like twits sometimes and be prepared to give them a good telling off when they deserve it. What Dido does really is a bit over the top.

Sarah Connolly manages to be quite a very dignified silly cow and she’s so persuasive she manages to make it seem like a very sensible decision and the only possible course of action so it is possible to suspend your belief and be sad for her instead of rolling your eyes and thinking the same as my granny’s friend. She puts lots of emotion into her performance and although she is a mezzo she can make her voice quite light which makes her seem more vulnerable. Mezzos are famous for playing witches, bitches and britches but sometimes they do get to be tragic heroines too. You can tell all the decent mezzo roles because of all the sopranos who sneak in and sing them.

Christopher Purves is a bit old now but in 2003 he must have been quite hot. He sounds very virile when he sings Aeneas and he’s definitely worth being a little bit sad over. Carolyn Sampson who sings Belinda doesn’t show lots of character but that’s not her fault. Belinda is basically just there so Dido isn’t talking to herself, nowadays we can do vlogs but in those days they just had to talk to people. Belinda doesn’t really have much story but Carolyn does have a beautiful voice which is ideal for early music, very pure, there’s no wobbly vibrato which allows her to make a vague stab at the note and just about get away with it, she has to hit every note on point and she does. Matthew Beale gives the Sailor lots of character, his voice is light but he doesn’t sound like one of those innocent virginal tenors, he sounds like he would be lots of fun. If he was about 30 years younger anyway.

Lucy Crowe sings the Spirit. She is a massively talented singer and if she was in Dido and Aeneas now she would so be playing Dido because she’s too good for a tiny role like the Spirit. But even right at the start of her career I think it’s obvious she’s going to be a big star. She sang with my mum once but she sings with the very best singers now.