DIDO & AENEAS

http://www.goldbergweb.com/en/discography/1998/4932.php

HENRY PURCELL
Ren Jacobs
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment , Clare College Chapel Choir
Lynne Dawson, Rosemary Joshua
Harmonia Mundi 901683
1998 - 59:33 min.

That Dido and Aeneas excited such little comment in Purcell's lifetime seems
extraordinary. The reason may well be, as Peter Holman has argued, that Didoprobably composed for a court performance in the mid-1680s-was all-sung, whereas
popular taste at the time favoured the traditional English spoken-dialogue-plus-music
format, the "semi-operas" that Purcell produced later. Yet it's remarkable that even
those colleagues of Purcell's who presumably knew the work never seem to mention
it. Could Dido's fate have been so quickly forgotten?
Rene Jacobs' new recording of the opera will surely linger in the memory for a long
time. This is a brilliantly imaginative, gripping performance, thanks partly to an
excellent, star-packed cast (with outstanding singers like Maria Cristina Kiehr and
Robin Blaze taking minor roles), but thanks also to Jacobs' well-paced direction. In
particular, he gladly embraces the work's emotional extremes and astutely exploits
their dramatic potential. The supernatural scenes are especially well done, both comic
and scary. Susan Bickley's relatively "straight" yet chilling Sorceress is complemented
by the gleefully malevolent cackling of Dominique Visse's First Witch, and Jacobs also
plays up the Chorus's lurching rhythms to great effect, leaving you in no doubt that
these are the forces of disorder! In contrast, Dido-superbly sung by Lynne Dawson- is
a convincingly human and tragic figure from the outset. Her angry third act exchange
with Aeneas has real bite and, following her sublime Lament, the final chorus has a
sombre, moving grandeur.
GRAHAM LOCK

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000056SSV/202-0699580-9882269
1. Ov - OAE/Rene Jacobs
21. Act II: Ritornelle - OAE/Rene Jacobs
2. Act I: Shake The Cloud - Rosemary Joshua
22. Act II: Thanks To These Lonesome Vales 3. Act I: Ah! Belinda, I Am Prest - Lynne Dawson
Rosemary Joshua

4. Act I: Grief Increase By Concealing - Rosemary

Joshua
5. Act I: When Monarchs Unite - Clare College
Chapel Chor/Timothy Brown
6. Act I: Whence Could So Much Virtue Spring? Lynne Dawson
7. Act I: Fear No Danger To Ensue - Rosemary
Joshua/Maria Cristina Kiehr
8. Act I: See, Your Royal Guest Appears - Rosemary
Joshua
9. Act I: Cupid Only Throws The Dart - Clare
College Chapel Chor/Timothy Brown
10. Act I: If Not For Mine - Gerald Finley
11. Act I: Pursue Thy Conquest - Rosemary Joshua
12. Act I: To The Hills And The Vales - Clare
College Chapel Chor/Timothy Brown
13. Act I: The Triumphing Dance - OAE/Rene
Jacobs
14. Act II: Prld For The Witches - OAE/Rene Jacobs
15. Act II: Harm's Our Delight - Clare College
Chapel Chor/Timothy Brown
16. Act II: The Queen Of Carthage - Susan Bickley
17. Act II: Ho Ho Ho, Ho Ho Ho! - Clare College
Chapel Chor/Timothy Brown
18. Act II: But Ere We This Perform - Dominque
Visse/Stephen Wallace
19. Act II: In Our Deep Vaulted Cell - Clare College
Chapel Chor/Timothy Brown
20. Act II: Echo Dance Of Furies - OAE/Rene
Jacobs

23. Act II: Oft She Visits This Lov'd Mountain Maria Cristina Kiehr
24. Act II: Behold, Upon My Bending Spear Gerald Finley
25. Act II: Haste, Haste To Town - Rosemary Joshua
26. Act II: Stay, Prince And Hear Great Jove's
Command - Robin Blaze
27. Act II: Then Since Our Charmes Have Sped Clare College Chapel Chor/Timothy Brown
28. Act II: The Grove's Dance - OAE/Rene Jacobs
29. Act III: Prld - OAE/Rene Jacobs
30. Act III: Come Away Fellow Sailors - Clare
College Chapel Chor/Timothy Brown
31. Act III: See The Flags And Streamers Curling Susan Bickley
32. Act III: Our Next Motion - Susan Bickley
33. Act III: Destruction's Our Delight - Clare
College Chapel Chor/Timothy Brown
34. Act III: The Witches' Dance - OAE/Rene Jacobs
35. Act III: Your Counsel All Is Urged In Vain Lynne Dawson
36. Act III: Great Minds Against Themselves
Conspire - Clare College Chapel Chor/Timothy
Brown
37. Act III: Thy Hand, Belinda - Lynne Dawson
38. Act III: When I Am Laid In Earth - Lynne
Dawson
39. Act III: With Dropping Wings Ye Cupids Come Clare College Chapel Chor/Timothy Brown

http://x402.putfile.com/4/11912290121.jpg
Dido and Aeneas
Composed by Henry Purcell
Performed by Cambridge Clare College Choir / Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with Stephen
Wallace, Gerald Finley, Rosemary Joshua, Lynne Dawson, John Bowen, Dominique Visse, Maria Cristina
Kiehr, Susan Bickley, Robin Blaze
Conducted by Ren Jacobs
BBC Music Magazine
With a cast of singers such as the one chosen by Rene Jacobs for his new recording of Purcell's opera
Dido and Aeneas it would be hard to imagine anything short of a triumph. Nor, in the event, was I
disappointed, though opinions will surely differ over the solution offered by Jacobs for the end of Act II. It
has long been thought that music for a concluding scene of the act has been lost. Jacobs has adapted music
from Purcell's semi-opera The Fairy Queen to fit the surviving text for 'The Sorceress and her
Enchantresses' and borrowed its Act III tune to provide the concluding Grove's Dance indicated in the
libretto.
Jacobs paces the drama effectively, seldom underplaying the wide range of emotions contained in the
music. Gerald Finley's Aeneas is nobly declaimed, so much so that we can almost feel sympathy for his

predicament as he concedes to Jupiter's command at the end of Act II. Susan Bickley's Sorceress, though
well characterised, is less menacing than some of her rivals on disc - I'm thinking of Monica Sinclair in
the Anthony Lewis recording (Decca) - but Dominique Visse and Stephen Wallace as the First and Second
Witches are horridly fiendish. The two leading roles, Dido sung by Lynne Dawson and her lady-in-waiting
Belinda by Rosemary Joshua, are rewarding. Dawson, on her strongest form, has as perfect a voice for the
role as any I can think of, delivering a beautifully sustained monologue - not quite enough anger, perhaps and a deeply felt concluding lament, in which she is sensitively supported by the strings of the Orchestra
of the Age of Enlightenment. Restrained, clear-textured singing by the Choir of Clare College Chapel,
Cambridge, sets the seal on a fine performance. Andrew Parrott (Chandos), William Christie (Erato),
Anthony Lewis (Decca) and Geraint Jones (EMI) are among those versions which, in a diversity of
respects, offer interesting and mainly satisfying alternatives, but the newcomer has fewer weak moments
than any of them.
Performance *****
Sound *****
BBC Music Magazine 2001
http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?ean=794881629725&ITM=8
REVIEWS
Barnes & Noble
Ren Jacobs leads the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in a brisk and dynamic interpretation of
Henry Purcell's perennially favorite opera, Dido and Aeneas. This version addresses a compositional
problem that has bewitched many prior efforts: A verse in Dido's extant libretto makes clear that a
witches' scene and dance originally capped the second act, yet surviving scores omit the music that
would have accompanied this text. In the unorthodox but effective solution heard on this recording,
Jacobs borrows music from Purcell's other dramatic masterpiece, The Fairy Queen, and sets it to the
forgotten poetry. The result is a fuller and more balanced work, one that smoothes over the dramatic
gap left by the musical lacuna. Jacobs capitalizes on this newfound coherence with his signature
precision and expressive range, while the tragi-comic nature of the opera provides ample opportunity
for his group of top-notch singers to show off their wares. In wonderfully schizophrenic
juxtapositions, supple arias cede ground to cackling witches, while bawdy sailors set the stage for
Dido's famous Lament, performed with intelligence and beauty by Lynne Dawson. Many recordings of
Dido and Aeneas exist, but Jacobs's cleverly provides a unique perspective that others lack.
Ramsey El-Assal

Libretto
http://operetta.stanford.edu/iu/libretti/dido.html#act1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dido_and_Aeneas
Skip the first 7 pages and youll find interesting things about this opera and Purcell in many languages:
http://www.glossamusic.com/downloads/pdf/921601.pdf
http://www.answers.com/topic/dido-and-aeneas
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/variations/scores/abm0994c/large/index.html
http://www.8notes.com/biographies/purcell.asp

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14430
ebook of Purcell:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14430/14430-h.zip
http://www.factspider.com/he/henry-purcell.html