Review

Dido and Aeneas / Jonas / I Will Not Speak, ETO, review: An adventurous journey through the 17th century

Sky Ingram and Nicholas Mogg in Dido and Aeneas
Sky Ingram and Nicholas Mogg in Dido and Aeneas Credit: Alastair Muir

This ambitious, adventurous and rewarding evening takes a journey through 17th-century vocal music, both religious and secular. Bravo to English Touring Opera for such imaginative programming.

It starts with "Jonas", a brief oratorio by Giacomo Carissimi based on the Old Testament book of Jonah. Carissimi followed in Monteverdi’s wake and although he lacks his predecessor’s rhythmic verve and sensual charm, his music has a Monteverdian declamatory eloquence that is mightily impressive. An ensemble of eight acts out the story in rudimentary fashion and sings it respectfully.

Rather more entertaining is what follows: "Io tacero" is in effect a half-hour introduction to the life and work of Carlo Gesualdo, a figure best known for murdering his wife and her lover but also a composer of striking originality, much admired by Stravinsky for his daring harmonies and complex polyphony. 

Here his rapturous motet responses for Holy Saturday ("Tenebrae"), dating from 1611, were sung alongside some of his madrigals, complemented by spiritual readings, contemporary verse by Donne and Herbert, and a succinct account of Gesualdo’s biography. The same ensemble of eight coped as well with the spoken elements as they did with the musical ones, in the contest of an atmospheric candle-lit staging by James Conway.

After the interval, we jump forward to the 1680s and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas – a one-off masterpiece that drew on European models (possibly including that of Carissimi) and yet radiates a distinctly English character in both its word setting and its drama.

Frederick Long as The Sorceress in Dido and Aeneas
Frederick Long as The Sorceress in Dido and Aeneas Credit: Alastair Muir

How many of opera’s early formal problems Purcell either avoids or solves here – no flat stretches of recitative, no endless da capo arias, in fact not a dull second in its fifty-minute duration. And what a pity that the Italian opera seria tradition that ensnared Handel and Vivaldi in the ensuing generation didn’t learn from its concision.

Directed by Seb Harcombe, ETO’s attractive staging is set in a grand mullion-windowed Tudor hall where Dido (a touchingly vulnerable and pure-toned Sky Ingram) is the noble lady of the house, courted by an Aeneas (Nicholas Moog, rather stiff and wet) who has stepped out of a Nicholas Hilliard miniature. Susanna Fairbairn is her sympathetic lady-in-waiting Belinda, Frederick Long has a whale of a time camping it up as the Sorceress, and Jonathan Peter Kenny conducts the Old Street Band in a performance that is warmly engaging.

Touring until November 22. Details: 0207 833 2555; englishtouringopera.co.uk

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