Longborough’s closing offering this season pairs its emerging artists with the Norwegian ensemble Barokksolistene in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (1689). Erlend Samnøen’s production expands the work to recreate something of the immersive and colourful spectacle of a 17th century masque, in adapted folkish costume of that period. The seven instrumentalists take their own part in the action on stage, led by Bjarte Eike from the violin, also functioning as like a compère.
Inspired by the ‘Alehouse Sessions’ which Eike curates, the band come through the auditorium while playing their instruments, before mounting the stage for the performance proper, breaking down any formal barrier between action and audience. The production therefore evokes something of the immediacy and spontaneity of a performance in a more informal setting such as a tavern, with consistently jaunty and animated energy in their interpretation of the music. The audience is also encouraged to participate in the refrain of a sea shanty in the last Act, given that its opening scene takes place among the Trojan sailors on shore, preparing to depart for Italy.
Atmosphere and effect on stage are largely created through choreography rather than a more worked-out directorial concept, though a reproduction of JMW Turner’s Dido building Carthage (in exactly the style of a painting by the mid-17th century artist Claude Lorrain) provides an ironic backdrop for the tragedy that ensues. The interpolated figure of the jealous King Iarbas of a neighbouring kingdom as a silent extra adds dramatic and narrative tension in explaining the countervailing force of wickedness which brings Dido down from her prosperous state. That arises naturally from the music, with the tapping and stirring of a bass drum as though brewing something in cauldron, and is visually well conveyed in the swaying motions by which Steven Player, Prospero-like, whips up the Sorceress, Witches and their cohort, in particularly snarling performances from Lydia Shariff, Lara Rebekah Harvey, and Myrna Tennant. The tragic climax of Dido’s death is movingly generated by having the whole cast of singers and performers lie down in lamenting sympathy with the Queen.
Continuing the improvisatory freedom of this presentation, Eike leads a succession of folksongs or ballads – with some audience participation – to form an ‘Irish wake’ for Dido. To my mind it feels more like an extended series of meditative, sentimental encores (notwithstanding a rendition of ‘Old Sir Simon the King’ with speeded-up, gigue-like snatches of ‘Jesu, joy of man’s desiring’ added) with no stylistic correspondences to Purcell’s opera, than a genuinely insightful or integrated third part of the overall production. Thematic connections aren’t strongly forged either, as the story of Dido and Aeneas is more than a doomed love story between individuals, seeing that the fate of whole empires are at stake. But many in the audience appreciated it, so I’ll happily ascribe my impression to subjective preferences.
Certainly less open to debate are the young singers’ accomplished performances. Camilla Seale carefully traces the development of Dido’s character, tender and fragile at first, enunciating her music subsequently with more regal confidence, before ending with a quivering, though still urgent account of ‘When I am laid in earth’ after taking poison. Sam Young is a direct, strenuous sounding Aeneas, while Jasmine Flicker beguiles as Dido’s confidante Belinda, who inserts into the opera a purposeful and almost anxious account of ‘Musick for a while’. Samantha Hargreaves and Megan O’Neill also allure as the Queen’s cousins, and Tomos Owen Jones adopts a flamboyant musical and dramatic profile as the Spirit in the form of the messenger Mercury. Alongside Barokksolistene’s contribution, they reinvigorate Purcell’s well-known work with a lively informality.
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