Purcell - Dido & Aeneas / Maria Ewing, Karl Daymond, Collegium Musicum 90
by Peter Maniura
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DVD details
Actor: Karl Raymond, Maria Ewing, Richard HickoxDirector: Peter Maniura
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Classical, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 60 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-06-24
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: KULTUR VIDEO
DVD Reviews of Purcell - Dido & Aeneas / Maria Ewing, Karl Daymond, Collegium Musicum 90
DVD Review: Dido Doesn't
Summary: 3 Stars
I have always loved Purcell's short piece on this famous story. However, this production is a big letdown. If you really like film, you will probably enjoy it because it is very cinematic. But if you really like opera it will be less satisfying. Like most attempt at filming opera made by film makers, this production is too cluttered visually. There is too much action to distract from the music for my taste.
Sad to say, ths biggest liability in the cast is Ewing (a singer I usually admire)as Dido. The production is, of course, dubbed. One is most aware of the lip synching with Ewing, probably most most seasoned professional in the cast. The other singers are more convincing in pretending to be singing and there are several truly outstanding voices in the cast. Anneas has a well produced lyric baritone (I don't agree with another reviewer's critique) and looks very handsome though clearly too young for the role. The first sorcerous, Sally Burgess, is outstanding with a melting mezzo and incredible phrasing. Why have we not heard more about this great singer?
Hickock has conducted this piece many times but he really seems to be dragging the tempos in the last scenes. Had Ewing been a bit more involved the ending might not have seemed so lifeless (no pun intended).
I also question the need for the nearly graphic sexuality during the "Come Away, Fellow Sailors" number. It seems that modern directors don't trust either the music or the story. They must feel that no one will pay attention if their direction is not suggestive enough. At least in this production half the cast did not carry rifles and guns.
Too bad this is the only game in town for this classic opera. It's unquestionably sumptuous visually but pretty bland as a representation of this glorious music
DVD Review: Interesting and lovely feature adaptation
Summary: 5 Stars
Unfortunately, this is the only operatic version of Purcell's masterpiece on DVD. However, it's definitely worth the money. There are many purists who look for different traits in a filmed Baroque opera; for example, costumes and dancing that reflect the styles of the original performance are usually expected. While these traits are certainly wonderful, it makes more sense on the first DVD release to have a dynamic and lavish feature-style presentation, with the original music and libretto preserved (which is what this recording does). To a mainstream audience, this approach will be far more engaging than an attempt at historical xeroxing. I'd like to see an historically accurate reproduction of this opera myself, but it's best that such a film come later. Baroque music can be too slow for many people, and Baroque costumes and dancing will put the majority of prospective purchasers into either an ennui-induced coma or fits of laughter.
My wife likes only a few choice operas, and was surprised by how much she enjoyed this one. So, for those who might read this review considering a purchase, here are a few things she found appreciable about it:
- It's short (1 hour).
- Almost every aria or duet is stunningly beautiful and instantly infectious.
- It gives a fine sample of some of the best music of that period.
- It's in English!
I think these traits make a strong argument for why many might find this DVD enjoyable. Purcell's opera will fade away if modern filmmakers, opera houses, and recording studios don't strive to make it relevant to a wider audience. This movie is a must-have for the opera collector.
DVD Review: Five Stars, Not Three
Summary: 5 Stars
I hadn't planned to write an exhaustive review (or any at all) of this DVD, but I just couldn't let the one previous assessment, Giordano Bruno's three-star rating, stand alone. Actually, it's surprising that Mr. Bruno gave such a relatively low score, given his generally positive written comments.
Let me say, then, that I think this is an excellent filmed production of Purcell's miniature masterpiece. The director, Peter Maniura, manages to be at once traditional and imaginative in setting this Virgilian tragic love story of ancient Carthage within the confines of the eighteenth-century Hampton Court House. To liven this elegant, stately background, Maniura makes particularly good use of fire as a persistent motif, whether in the blazing torches celebrating the lovers' public acknowledgement of their mutual passion, or the fiery engulfment of the exterior of the house to indicate both the end of the brief affair and the accompanying fall of Carthage, or the final conflagration of the funeral pyre which consumes the body of the tragic queen who has died of thwarted love. The two principals, Maria Ewing and Karl Daymond, are both attractive and convincingly wrapped up in one another's longing gazes, so as to make their tempestuous passion compelling. Maniura even manages to make the Sorceress and her cackling demonic followers, so oddly (and potentially comically) discordant with Virgil's classical narrative, into genuinely fearsome and formidable figures. All this, plus a stirring rendition of Purcell's lovely score, makes for an entrancing and moving production which more than makes up, Mr. Bruno notwithstanding, for the lack of dancing and liner notes.
DVD Review: Ever Wonder Why Dryden Was Appreciated?
Summary: 3 Stars
Those jangling, affected tetrameter rhymed couplets? Listen to them sung to the strains of Purcell's best masque music and you'll understand. In fact, this performance of Dido and Aeneas, which makes no effort at recreating the historical staging, nonetheless will bring you closer to the "spirit of the times" of mid-17th Century England than any amount of reading. It's only a 55-minute production, so it might even be useful for classrooms in English literature and history.
If the dandies and grandees of Hampton Court had had video cameras and sound equipment, surely they would have made a film as visually noir as this. As it happens, they didn't. They depended on dancing and costumes for their visual thrills, and a good deal of the music Purcell wrote was intended for dancers. The film has no dancing at all, about which you, dear reader, may or may not care. What it has is movie-quality camera handling, evocative sets, and fairly good acting for a bunch of singers.
The singing is good. Maria Ewing (Dido) has enough drama left in her voice to compensate for a slight lack of athleticism in her rapid passages. Karl Daymond (Aeneas) doesn't have the voice to match his macho presence, but Aeneas doesn't get to sing much in this production anyway. Rebecca Evans is vocally delightful as Belinda. The best singing of all is that of James Bowman as Mercury, but he has hardly more than twenty bars. The chorus carries Purcell's musical art here, with the melodies you'll remember and the words you won't forget:
"Come away, come away, fellow sailors!
Take a boozy short leave of your nymphs on the shore,
and silence their mourning
with vows of returning,
but never, no never intending to visit them more."
Purcell is the household deity of English music, and his premature death is lamented as the reason why England fell short of other European countries in music for the rest of the millennium. Welll... This is elegant and diverting music, but it's no more than that. Unfortunately, this DVD comes with no notes at all - no history, no libretto, no performers' bios. Kinda cheap, Kultur!
Four stars for the singing, minus one for the lack of any notes.
Description of Purcell - Dido & Aeneas / Maria Ewing, Karl Daymond, Collegium Musicum 90
Dido: MARIA EWINGAeneas: KARL DAYMOND
Belinda: REBECCA EVANS
Sorceress: SALLY BURGESS
Second Woman: PATRICIA ROZARIO
First Enchantress: MARY PLAZAS
Second Enchantress: PAMELA HELEN STEPHEN
Aeneas' Lieutenant: JAMIE MCDOUGALL
Mercury: FRAN?OIS TESTORY
Voice Of Mercury: JAMES BOWMAN
Conductor: RICHARD HICKOX
Director: PETER MANIURA
Purcell's much-loved tragic opera is an intense tale of heroism, passion, betrayal and ultimate tragedy, played out against a backdrop of fiery rituals, evil spells and pageantry. It was filmed entirely on location at Hampton Court House, England, where spectacular settings are created in the house and grounds.
Dido, Queen of Carthage, and Prince Aeneas, a fugitive lately arrived in her realm after the fall of Troy, fall in love; Dido's confidante Belinda urges her to yield to his suit, and they go off on a hunting party which, as a seventeenth-century audience would readily have understood, symbolises Aeneas's sexual capture of Dido. Meanwhile, skulking in the gloom of a cave, an evil Sorceress and her Enchantresses (an addition of Tate's not found in Virgil) plot to destroy Dido by conjuring up a false vision of Mercury to send Aeneas on his way; this is duly done when the hunting party is scattered by a sudden thunderstorm. Soon afterwards, as the Trojan mariners prepare to set sail, the Sorceress and Enchantresses arrive at the quayside to gloat; Dido upbraids Aeneas for his faithlessness and furiously dismisses him but after he has left she dies, broken-hearted, in Belinda's arms.
The dramatic power of the piece is complemented by its musical riches, which are shared among all the individual singers and the various colourful groups: urbane courtiers, gleefully malignant witches, salty mariners portrayed by the chorus.
Dido & Aeneas is not only one of the most perfect operas ever written but also an ideal opera for television. The extreme dramatic compression of its plot, which is one of the few grounds on which it is open to criticism, is even an advantage in film terms. Cinema and television audiences are extremely familiar with fast cutting, rapid plot development and the emotional twists and turns of much contemporary drama. A classical tragedy compressed into just under one hour is thus not as implausible as it might at first appear.
The location, Hampton Court House, is an empty mid-eighteenth century mansion with its own, slightly decayed, formal gardens and grounds. Ancient Carthage on the coast of North Africa, the setting for the story, was a trading city and a melting pot of nations. Niek Kortekaas, the designer, decided to create a rich yet primitive world, lit by fire (for which there are many references both literal and metaphorical in the text) in which Dido's court draws together elements of many cultures and traditions fusing them into a society dominated by ritual and pageantry
The challenge of working on film was a new one for most of the cast and it allowed a great subtlety in the vocal performances since the artists did not have to worry about projecting their performances into an auditorium. Magnetic performers like Maria Ewing were able to relish intimate effects which would not have registered in an opera house. Equally the tight focus of film work with its close-ups and reaction shots called for a style of acting quite different from that employed in a theatre and one which the cast embraced with great enthusiasm. I hope that this film captures both the personal intimacy and the public tragedy which lie at the heart of Purcell's great masterpiece. Peter Maniura
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