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Reviewer: Lindsay Kemp
Dido and Aeneas strikes me as a piece that struggles to gain a great deal from modern‑day opera‑house stagings. The very intimacy of it, its quirky dramatic pacing and the libretto’s large‑ scale reliance on acquaintance with the story are all probable results of its origins as an entertainment for a small and knowledgeable audience, and offer problems to musical and stage directors alike that are often all too uncomfortably dealt with. In short, this is not a piece that takes naturally to the enlargement of scale a large auditorium demands.
The 2014 staging by Opéra de Rouen Haute‑Normandie offered on the present release succeeds as well as any, while still coming across as somewhat distanced. Musically, it does what many do by beefing up the band with woodwind doublings and filling out the overall length of the show with additional dance numbers, though in this case even the extra Purcell is lengthened by improvised riffs and extensions.
Some go on a little too long but they are satisfyingly organic at least. And indeed this is a strongly convincing and stylish performance from a cast led by the dark but clear‑voiced Vivica Genaux as a handsome, vulnerable Dido. Henk Neven’s tone is heroic; and if his form is not quite as god‑like as the libretto tells us, well, no man looks good while stumbling excuses to his lover. Ana Quintans’s Belinda offers bright support, providing, as she should, much of the work’s forward energy. Vincent Dumestre directs the adept players of Le Poème Harmonique and an offstage chorus with alert dramatic sense while remembering to honour the sensuousness of Purcell’s music.
Sensual richness is also the main virtue of the production, designed by Cécile Roussat and Julien Lubek, not least in costumes with a rich Baroque look to them. The staging takes the libretto’s many references to the sea as a keynote, and this corner of Carthage is populated by a wealth of mer‑folk and monsters, wittily and often beautifully represented by an assortment of singers, dancers, tumblers and trapeze artists. Marc Mauillon’s strident sorceress, gloriously, is a giant octopus, and his/her comically malevolent harbourside scene with a host of other finny denizens of the deep carries a delicious hint of Pirates of the Caribbean. The sea itself is summoned by shimmering strips of silk, cunningly lit. On this mermaids gently bob, while in the production’s most powerfully realised moment – the final lament, as it must be – Dido’s own dress unravels to cover her over, an upraised hand the last thing we see as the famous ostinato drags her below.
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