Dido & Aeneas: A brief survey

La Morte di Didone (The Death of Dido) by Guercino, 1631. Image source: Classical Inquiries

Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (1688?), the greatest opera in English, was written for parents' night at a girls' school. Possibly as a result, the original performances—there is evidence suggesting that there were at least two, one in 1688 or earlier and another in 1689—were only about 75 minutes long, including a prologue and the recital of a poem after the end of the opera (for details, please see The Mysteries of Dido and Aeneas). The music to the prologue has been lost, and we no longer recite poems after the curtain has come down; the surviving music can be performed in about 50 minutes.

The opera's tunefulness and brevity (it can fit on a single LP, and easily on a CD) has made it an irresistible recording project for several decades, and the role of Queen Dido of Carthage has been sung by a long list of renowned singers, including:

• Kirsten Flagstad (conducted by Geraint Jones, 1951),
• Teresa Berganza (Pierre Dervaux, 1960),
• Janet Baker (Anthony Lewis, 1962),
• Victoria de los Angeles (John Barbirolli, 1965),
• Tatiana Troyanos (Charles Mackerras, 1967, and Raymond Leppard, 1977),
• Emma Kirkby (Andrew Parrott, 1981),
• Lynne Dawson (René Jacobs, 1998),
• Susan Graham (Emmanuelle Haïm, 2003),
• Julianne Baird (Valentin Radu, 2007),
• Sarah Connolly (Steven Devine & Elizabeth Kenny, 2008).

On MusicWeb International you can read Ralph Moore's survey of 30 Dido recordings (his tastes aren't quite mine); the Dido discography on Wikipedia lists nearly 50 versions.

I'm going to do nothing so ambitious as Moore or Wikipedia. Instead, I'm going to offer notes on six recordings involving period-instrument ensembles and their HIP conductors (that's "historically-informed performance," although not everything HIP conductors do is historically justified, as we will see).

My mini-survey was inspired by my previous post on Venetia Murray's An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England. That post included a caricature by James Gillray in which the Prince of Wales is cast as Aeneas and his mistress Mrs. Fitzherbert as Dido:

"DIDO FORSAKEN. Sic transit gloria Regina [Thus passes the glory of the Queen]." George, Prince of Wales: "I never saw her in my Life." Steersman Charles Fox: "No, never in all his Life, Damme." Frederick North: "No, never." Edmund Burke: "Never." Caricature by James Gillray, published by Samuel William Fores, 21 May 1787. Image source: National Portrait Gallery NPG D12994

(For a fuller explanation of the historical circumstances of the caricature, please see An Elegant Madness; for a discussion of its imagery, please see that post's footnote #4.)

The story being referenced in the caricature is from Virgil's Aeneid. The Trojan hero Aeneas, escaping from the destruction of Troy with a few ships and a few dozen men, finds shelter at Carthage, ruled by the widowed Queen Dido. At a court banquet Aeneas tells the harrowing story of the fall of Troy and his escape from the burning city. Dido, to her dismay, finds herself falling in love with the hero. Aeneas' fate, though, is to sail to Italy and found Rome, and when the gods send Mercury to remind him, he abandons Dido. She kills herself with a sword Aeneas gave her as a gift; as his ships sail away, Aeneas sees the smoke from Dido's funeral pyre rising behind them.

Nahum Tate's libretto for Purcell's opera alters Virgil's epic by removing the gods as agents of Dido's destruction and substituting a sorceress whose hate for Dido inspires her to send a spirit ("in the form of Mercury") to command Aeneas to leave Carthage. Dido does not commit suicide but dies of heartbreak. Schoolgirls could hardly depict self-murder, although the implication that Dido and Aeneas consummate their love at some point between the Palace and the post-coital Grove scenes (Aeneas sings "one night enjoy'd/the next forsook") is certainly eyebrow-raising—perhaps it was acceptable for unmarried young women to enact Dido's story as a cautionary tale. For more on the opera, please see Opera Guide 1: Dido and Aeneas.

In Gillray's caricature, the dialogue of the men in the boat and its repetition of "never" is likely a reference to the First Sailor's song from Dido and Aeneas:

Come away, fellow sailors, your anchors be weighing,
Time and tide will admit no delaying.
Take a boozy short leave of your nymphs on the shore,
And silence their mourning with vows of returning,
But never intending to visit them more,
No never intending to visit them more,
No never, no never intending to visit them more.

Discovering the caricature and its apparent quote from Dido and Aeneas sent me to listen to opera once again, and in choosing the link to the First Sailor's song I began to make comparisons among several performances. I limited myself to period-instrument versions of the opera, and ultimately chose six to survey, given in the table below:

Role	Arkiv Produktion, 1988	L'Oiseau-Lyre, 1992	Harmonia Mundi, 1993	Erato, 1994	Chandos, 1995	Rhombus Media, 1995
Dido	Anne Sofie von Otter	Catherine Bott	Lorraine Hunt	Véronique Gens	Maria Ewing	Jennifer Lane
Aeneas	Stephen Varcoe	John Mark Ainsley	Michael Dean	Nathan Berg	Karl Daymond	Russell Braun
Sorceress	Nigel Rogers	David Thomas	Ellen Rabiner	Claire Brua	Sally Burgess	Jennifer Lane
Belinda	Lynne Dawson	Emma Kirkby	Lisa Saffer	Sophie Marin-Degor	Rebecca Evans	Ann Monoyios
Second Woman	Sarah Leonard	Julianne Baird	Donna Deam	Sophie Daneman	Patricia Rozario	Shari Saunders
Witches	Elizabeth Priday Carol Hall	Elizabeth Priday Sara Stowe	Christine Brandes Ruth Rainero	Sophie Daneman Gaëlle Mechaly	Mary Plazas Pamela Helen Stephen	Shari Saunders Meredith Hall
Spirit	Kym Amps	Michael Chance	Christine Brandes	Jean-Paul Fouchécourt	James Bowman	Meredith Hall
First Sailor	Nigel Rogers	Daniel Lochmann	Paul Elliott	Jean-Paul Fouchécourt	Jamie McDougall	Benjamin Butterfield
Conductor	Trevor Pinnock	Christopher Hogwood	Nicholas McGegan	William Christie	Richard Hickox	Jeanne Lamon
Orchestra	The English Concert	The Academy of Ancient Music	Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra	Les Arts Florissants	Collegium Musicum 90	Tafelmusik Orchestra
Chorus	Choir of The English Concert	Chorus of The Academy of Ancient Music	Choir of Clare College, Cambridge	Soloists, plus Steve Dugardin (alto) and Jonathan Arnold (bass)	Collegium Musicum 90 Choir	Tafelmusik Chamber Choir

This is not an exhaustive list of period-instrument versions by any means. But just as I prefer the sound of historical instruments in this music, I favor a particular voice type in the role of Dido, which eliminated several possibilities.

Dido is a sorrowful figure from the first moments of the opera: the words of her first aria, addressed to her sister Belinda, relate her torment and grief at the love for Aeneas that as queen she must conceal. A young woman might be joyful at newfound love; Dido, older and wiser, understands that falling in love could be disastrous (as, indeed, it turns out to be).  Singers performing this role must combine both depth of emotion and nobility of expression. The role also spans a wide range, and requires a strong lower register.

So I prefer a mezzo-soprano Dido; high sopranos Emma Kirby for Andrew Parrott, Lynne Dawson for René Jacobs, and Julianne Baird for Valentin Radu have the wrong sound, to my ears, and so those recordings were not included in the survey. (I made an exception for Véronique Gens, one of my favorite singers, with William Christie.) I also prefer a baritone Aeneas and a mezzo-soprano or alto Sorceress, although having another voice type in those roles did not automatically eliminate a recording. (After all, we have evidence that at the original performances at Josias Priest's school Aeneas was sung by a young woman.)

Finally, the surviving music is scored for strings and continuo. Adding winds (as do both Jacobs and Emmanuelle Haïm) has no specific justification. Nor does repeating the first section of the overture (as do both Jacobs and Haïm), which has no repeat sign in the early scores. I far prefer versions that rely on the existing musical evidence over interventionist approaches that attempt to "improve" Purcell.

Taking my selections in chronological order:

The English Concert & Choir conducted by Trevor Pinnock. Image source: Presto Music

For Trevor Pinnock's version on Archiv, Anne Sofie von Otter has the requisite regal gravity. But at the words "Remember me" in her final aria von Otter sings "Remombah mah!," calling attention not to the despair of the character, but to the difficulty of singing the highest notes of the role. In his survey linked above, Ralph Moore says that "Von Otter’s final scene is up with the best." This pronunciation flaw is so obtrusive I can't agree; your judgment may differ.

Stephen Varcoe in the bass-baritone role of Aeneas sounds quite similar to tenor Nigel Rogers' Sorceress. While it could be a dramatic choice to depict both Aeneas and the Sorceress as linked agents of Dido's destruction, this feels more like Pinnock was simply following the tradition established in the 18th and 19th centuries for a male Sorceress. As for Rogers, according to Ellen Harris' Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, 2nd edition (Oxford, 2018), the earliest surviving manuscript of the score, from 1700, sets the Sorceress's part in the mezzo-soprano range; in later 18th-century sources the part is written for bass. I prefer a woman in this role; in any case, here I agree with Moore about Rogers that "there is little of menace or the macabre in his threats—he just sounds like a bloke singing the Sorceress' words."

Pinnock's tempos are stately, and as a result this version feels sluggish and lacks dramatic drive at key points. (Characteristically, Pinnock's overture takes 2:20, versus 2:04 for Hogwood, 1:54 for Christie and Hickox, and 1:51 for McGegan.) Taken together these issues are sufficiently bothersome for me to recommend against this version. However, Matthew Boyden in The Rough Guide to Opera, 3rd edition (2002), selects it as one of his top choices.

Chorus and Orchestra of The Academy of Ancient Music conducted by Christopher Hogwood. Image source: Presto Music

Speaking of blokes singing the Sorceress' words, bass David Thomas on Christopher Hogwood's L'Oiseau-Lyre version is even worse than Rogers. Singing in an exaggerated, affected way, Thomas sounds like a pantomime dame. Here is the Sorceress's first appearance, "Wayward sisters":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m81q1Lp9Xog

The witches have also been directed by Hogwood, unsuccessfully, to camp it up (Stowe in particular just sounds excessively nasal). Hogwood makes another odd choice: the First Sailor, Daniel Lochmann, is a boy treble, making incongruous his admonition to his fellow sailors to "take a boozy short leave of your nymphs on the shore." If David Thomas evokes a panto dame, the First Sailor sounds like he's wandered in from a production of Oliver. John Mark Ainsley is a tenor Aeneas, and although he has a good voice, I prefer a bass-baritone in the role.

Finally, Catherine Bott's mezzo-soprano is not particularly rich or resonant, particularly in the role's lower range, and her manner is strangely detached: when she sings "I am press'd with torment," she hardly sounds it, nor does her final scene sound like a woman facing the end of her hopes, and her life. (Bott does sing a beautifully floated and correctly pronounced "Remember me!"). With these substantial problems, I can't recommend this version either, although it is given an "Outstanding" rating in the Gramophone Classical Good CD Guide 2004.

The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra conducted by Nicholas McGegan. Image source: Presto Music

I confess that I can't be fully objective about Nicholas McGegan's version on Harmonia Mundi: McGegan and his Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra were in the pit for our first performances of the opera by the Mark Morris Dance Group, our Baroque opera conversion experience, and his was the first recording of this work we heard.

McGegan does make two missteps, in my view, which I'll address straight away. The first is casting contralto Ellen Rabiner as the Sorceress. Her pronounced vibrato and Wagnerian vocal style set her apart from the rest of the cast. Rabiner is a significant improvement over either Thomas or Rogers, and casting a low female voice in the role of the cave-dwelling Sorceress is a choice that could have worked extremely well. However, I regret that McGegan didn't opt for Jennifer Lane (who sings the dual roles of Dido and the Sorceress for Jeanne Lamon on the DVD of the Mark Morris production) or Judith Malafronte (who sang Dido and the Sorceress for McGegan when we saw the Mark Morris production live).

McGegan's second misstep is to immediately follow the final scene of the opera with Purcell's music for The Gordian Knot Unty'd. This is clearly done to fill out the CD, which would otherwise be only 50 minutes long. The contrast, though, between the moving final chords of Dido's death scene and the dance-filled incidental music to The Gordian Knot Unty'd is jarring. Fortunately this is a fault easily remedied by CD programming, playlist editing, or just hitting the stop button. Dido does not need any fillers.

The performances of the witches and sailors (soloists and chorus) are quite characterful. The witches have a kind of wild, sinister hilarity, and Paul Elliott's First Sailor is sung as an authentic-sounding Jack Tar. This theatrical approach may bother some listeners, but I find that (unlike Hogwood's) McGegan's direction doesn't go over the top, but rather enhances the flavor of the proceedings—this is, after all, a stage work.

But the glory of this set is Lorraine Hunt's Dido, a role perfect for her plangent mezzo-soprano. Hunt is regal and conveys deep feeling; a better embodiment of the tragic queen is impossible to imagine. Helped by McGegan's urgent pacing, Hunt also summons fierce anger in Dido's final confrontation with Aeneas, when she rejects his last-minute change of heart and promise to stay. And her sorrowful closing lament simply stops time. We are fortunate indeed to have this record of Hunt's performance.

Dido's first aria, expressing her foreboding about her developing feelings for Aeneas, "Ah! Belinda, I am press'd with torment":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz9aXLHIjzA

Hunt's performance makes this version my first choice. Hunt would go on to powerfully portray other tragic women, including Medea (Charpentier's Médée, recorded with William Christie in 1994), Irene (Handel's Theodora, recorded with William Christie in 1996), Phédre (Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie, recorded with William Christie in 1997), Empress Octavia (Ottavia in Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea, at SF Opera in 1998), and Berlioz's Dido (Didon in Les Troyens, at the Metropolitan Opera in 2003). Her death from breast cancer at age 52 in 2006 was a profound loss.

Les Arts Florissants conducted by William Christie. Image source: Presto Music

Given the French influences on Stuart society in the 1680s—the mother of James II, Henrietta Maria, was French, and as a young man James served in the army of Louis XIV—it is certainly defensible to perform Dido and Aeneas in French style. And William Christie's version on Erato has many virtues. As with McGegan's recording, Christie's benefits from extensive experience in staged opera, and offers dynamism and drama (at 45 minutes it's the shortest version in this survey). It also has the suitably heroic Aeneas of Nathan Berg, and the excellent Sophie Daneman as Second Woman and First Witch. The Second Woman's recounting of the tale of Diana and Actaeon, "Oft she visits this lone mountain":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4yP26skIZg

However, there are also some noteworthy issues. Most of the cast (the British Daneman and the Canadian Berg aside) sing their English lines with light but detectable French accents. (Of course, French, Italian, and German audiences must frequently listen to non-native opera singers outright massacre their languages, so being bothered by this seems unfair; still.) Claire Brua's Sorceress "is a splendidly insinuating conception, with a slithering melodic style," according to the Gramophone guide; you may feel, as I do, that her sliding around the notes is overdone, as are the witches' sneering voices. As Dido, Véronique Gens has a lovely voice and beautifully expresses the tragic nature of character, but the role lies a bit low for her pure soprano. She isn't quite able to offer the vocal richness of Lorraine Hunt (see above) or Jennifer Lane (see below), particularly in the role's lowest range. 

Finally, Christie's chorus seems to be largely made up of the soloists. While this was a common practice in Italian opera seria, which typically only had one short final ensemble, it would probably not have been the case for this opera, where the chorus has such a prominent role and is onstage simultaneously with the principals. Not only does Christie's small chorus lack the impact of a larger group, but as Ralph Moore points out in his survey, their voices don't blend particularly well. 

I find these drawbacks to be significant; however, my reservations are not shared by the Gramophone guide, which gives it a "Recommended" rating.

Collegium Musicum 90 conducted by Richard Hickox. Image source: Presto Music

Richard Hickox's recording on Chandos served as the soundtrack for a BBC film of the opera directed by Peter Maniura, broadcast on PBS in 1996. In the film the setting was shifted from ancient Carthage to the Renaissance, with Hampton Court picturesquely serving as Dido's palace. Apart from giving the filmmakers the opportunity to raid the BBC's vast store of sumptuous costumes, the film's main virtue is to give Maria Ewing's Dido a visual dimension. She was one of the great singing actresses of her generation, and seeing her performance (despite the occasional lip-synching problems) adds to its impact. 

The visual dimension doesn't hurt the handsome Karl Daymond's portrayal of Aeneas, either. And having an Aeneas that is visibly younger than Dido works well dramatically: it implies that Dido sees in Aeneas her last chance of a great passion.

On CD, as a purely aural experience, Ewing's operatic vocal style, and particularly her prominent vibrato, is more bothersome. Here is "Your counsel all is urg'd in vain," Dido's final confrontation with Aeneas after she learns that he is leaving:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW1Y18-dzyE

Ewing's dramatic engagement is not in question, but her vibrato is a matter of taste, and I prefer other singers in this role. But what's also apparent from this excerpt is that, perhaps due to his relative inexperience with opera, Hickox takes this dramatic scene at far too slow a pace; McGegan's and Christie's versions are both well under four minutes long, while Hickox takes nearly four and a half minutes. Although I think the film version is worth seeing, the combination of the slack pacing and Ewing's vibrato rule out the CD version of this performance for me. In his survey Ralph Moore disagrees, calling it "a top contender" and "highly recommendable."

Tafelmusik Orchestra and Chamber Choir conducted by Jeanne Lamon. Image source: Mark Morris Dance Group

This video preserves Morris' performance in the double role of Dido and the Sorceress in what is perhaps his most moving work. Jeanne Lamon's conducting emphasizes the opera's tragedy with slow tempos, perhaps to enable the dancers to more easily execute the gestural choreography. But as a purely musical experience it lacks the headlong, inexorable rush towards the final tragedy that McGegan's or Christie's version provides. 

Vocally, Jennifer Lane and Russell Braun are an excellent central couple. And, paralleling Morris' double role, Lane sings both Dido and the Sorceress (she is easily the best Sorceress in this survey). The double roles suggest that, as Joan Acocella writes in her great book on Morris (FSG, 1993), the Sorceress is "an anti-Dido," just as her coven of witches is the evil mirror image of the courtiers who surround the queen. The double casting may also suggest that the Sorceress is a self-destructive aspect of Dido. As Roger Savage has written:

It can be argued that. . .all the [female] characters in the opera are really personified aspects of Dido: Belinda and the Second Woman projections of her yearning towards erotic fulfillment, the Sorceress a formidable anti-self embodying all her insecurities and apprehensions of disaster contingent on her involving herself in any deep personal relationship, and the two solo witches nightmarish shadows of Belinda and the Second Woman. [1]

Barbara Willis Sweete's direction is sometimes distracting—we don't really need to see the singers floating on and off the screen again after their first appearance—but this film is an invaluable record of one of Morris' greatest works.

Highly recommended: McGegan, Harmonia Mundi; Lamon, Rhombus Media

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1. Roger Savage, Producing Dido and Aeneas: An investigation into sixteen problems. In Michael Burden, ed. The Purcell Companion, Amadeus Press, 1995, pp. 445-468.