Apollo’s Fire brought Dido and Aeneas to the Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory of Music on Sunday October 12 for the ensemble’s final October performance (the last of seven, including two in Chicago).
Dido and Aeneas, Henry Purcell’s 1689 experiment in sung-through opera (with libretto by Nahum Tate), proved, as expected, enchanting, thanks to tweaks and additions by artistic director Jeannette Sorrell. As Sorrell writes, “In the manner of a Greek tragedy, the events take place all in one day — Queen Dido falls in love with Aeneas, they consummate their love, he abandons her, and she dies in sorrow.”
Hmm. Sorrell adds excellent touches to Purcell’s AI-style summary of tragic love, the best being, perhaps, the Prologue she wrote for the opera’s imagined performance in Mr. Priest’s Boarding School. Four girls recite simple rhythmic lines that outline the story and move from “Dear Patrons and Friends, with greatest delight/We welcome you here on this fresh autumn night” to “was it Destiny, or mere Ambition?/Do we choose our deeds of our own volition?”
Something to ponder.
While Peter Bennett took Sorrell’s usual place at the harpsichord, assistant director/violinist Alan Choo led both musicians and vocalists from his perch on a slightly raised pedestal.
Magically, there was room for the small but mighty band of Apollo’s Fire instrumentalists as well as for singers (who were actors and dancers as well) on the limited space offered on the Gamble Auditorium stage.
It was a quickly paced delight that ranged from melancholy, the famous Dido’s lament, to the evil Sorceress and her comic minions.
Mezzo-soprano Aryssa Leigh Burrs as Dido expressed the Queen’s grief without milking it for pity (or whining slowly, as some soloists have done) before lying limply on the floor to die—It was a relatively quick exit and much appreciated by this critic who believes Dido could not have run Carthage if she had been a wimpy gal who would have just died if her lover left her. Politics. Not for sissies.
Baritone Edward Vogel as Aeneas, a man caught by fate (that’s his story anyway), proves a fine vocal match to our heroine as titular hero and heartbreaker. Readers of Vergil’s Aeneid may have more sympathy for him than those who know him only through Purcell’s treatment. (Troy was brutally destroyed and simply getting out alive might be considered a major achievement—but enough about that.)
The Apollo’s Singers—especially soprano Andréa Walker as Dido’s ever-helpful Belinda and countertenor Cody Bowers as the wicked Sorceress—brought extra delight, dramatizing story elements through nimble steps and expressions. Maidens (Walker and Kristine Caswelch) turned from sweet beauties to dancing witches and spirits thanks to choreographer Julie Andreijeski.
Aside from the prologue, another welcome addition was a brief Entr’acte featuring traditional “British Isles Sea Shanties.” Baritone Sam Kreidernweis, bass Michael Galvin, and tenor Michael St. Peter showed, via traditional melodies, what true grief a sailor’s life might convey. It made Dido’s trauma recede even more in the grand scheme of things.
Bottom Line: Another classic revived and enlivened by Apollo’s Fire very welcome magic.