Best of 2010: Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, the Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Opera Production, by Michael Miller

Carrie Henneman Shaw and Brenna Wells in the Boston Early Music Festival production of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. Photo André Costantini.

Henry Purcell, Dido and Aeneas
Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Opera Production
Saturday, November 27, 2010 at 8pm
Sunday, November 28, 2010 at 3pm
New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall, Boston

Paul O'Dette and Stephen Stubbs, Musical Directors
Gilbert Blin, Stage Director
Anna Watkins, Costume Designer
Melinda Sullivan, Choreographer

Laura Pudwell, Dido
Douglas Williams, Aeneas
Yulia Van Doren, Belinda
Caroline Copeland and Carlos Fittante, Featured Baroque Dancers

This is the third year of BEMF's wonderful new institution of annual chamber opera performances. These not only help us get through the alternate years, when there is no main festival in June, nor any full opera production, they set a standard for authenticity and for the imaginative recreation of centuries-old practices and aesthetics in such a way that an audience of cultivated non-experts can enjoy the performance and walk away exhilarated. This was certainly the mood in late November last year, when BEMF turned to Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. None of the other chamber operas produced so far is particularly obscure — not John Blow'sVenus and Adonis, nor Charpentier's Actéon, nor Handel's Acis and Galatea. On the contrary, they are central to the history of the genre, and they are performed, although not very often. This year's offering, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, is the most popular pre-Mozart opera of all. It fills the needs of conservatories, young sopranos or mezzos, as well as ageing divas, who wish to apply their wisdom to the tragic Queen of Carthage. We have reviewed a number of modest, but very successful productions in the Review over the past year or so.

 

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an international journal for the Arts!

Michael Miller