The recording companies have been doing well by Cavalli; Opus
Arte have also given us a good recording of Ercole Amante
on DVD and blu-ray (OA1020D/OABD7050D - review)
and Dynamic have recently released CD and DVD/blu-ray recordings
of Il Giasone. I enjoyed this new recording of La
Didone at least as much as that of Ercole and much
more than Il Giasone, where a good set of performances
is vitiated for me by an over-busy production - see September
2012/1 Roundup.
Fortunately the subject matter of La Didone mostly precludes
the foolery which spoiled Il Giasone; even the temporary
madness of Iarbas is sensitively handled.
The title might lead you to believe that La Didone covers
only the same ground as Purcell’s Dido and Æneas,
the fourth book of Virgil’s Æneid, but you’ll
see from the inclusion of characters such as Cassandra and Anchises
that it begins with the fall of Troy, as narrated in the earlier
books of that work. The Prologue and Act 1 are set amid the
ruins of Troy, vaguely suggested by the background.
Nor does the work end as you might expect with the death of
Dido - instead she marries her long-time suitor Iarbas. There
is some small justification for that in that Iarbas is at least
mentioned by Virgil as having sought to marry Dido (Æneid
4.195-218) and by Ovid, though the latter makes him invade Carthage
after the death of Dido. Cavalli’s librettist took up
the rage which possessed Iarbas on hearing of Dido’s love
for Æneas: “protinus ad regem cursus detorquet Iarban/incenditque
animum dictis atque aggerat iras.” (soon [the rumour]
made its way round to King Iarbas, inflamed his mind with what
was being said and stirred up his anger.) In this production
the happy ending is sensitively handled, with Dido urged to
suicide by the ghost of her husband but saved at the last moment
by the fidelity of Iarbas who has been divinely saved from his
madness. In this production, though Dido agrees to marry Iarbas,
the mood remains sombre, as if she has in fact died spiritually,
a neat solution, though one that is somewhat at odds with the
words and music of rejoicing at that point:
Godiam dunque godiamo
sereni i dì, e ridenti,
né pur pronunciamo
il nome de’ tormenti.
If that makes it seem as if the librettist had been playing
around unduly with Virgil, it’s worth remembering that
Purcell’s took equally great liberties in introducing
the witches and making Mercury into a creature of theirs. Mercury
is in fact a very serious messenger indeed in Virgil, as he
is in Cavalli where the use of the epithet pio echoes
Virgil’s oft-used epithet pius Æneas, with
a stern message from Jupiter to stop womanising and get on with
the job of founding the Roman Empire. In another departure from
Virgil in la Didone, Æneas’ father Anchises
is still alive when they arrive in Carthage.
What Cavalli has taken on in dealing with the fall of Troy and
the loves of Dido and Æneas in one opera is certainly
daunting; Purcell limited himself to the second half of the
story. Berlioz originally had to split the action across two
operas, as Colin Davis also did with the Chelsea Opera Group
production with which he made his name as a Berlioz interpreter
and which was my own introduction to Les Troyens. At
almost three hours, La Didone is certainly a work of
heavenly length, as, indeed is Ercole Amante, but neither
outstays its welcome. It’s a fine work in the tradition
of his teacher Monteverdi. The blurb describes it as ‘one
of the earliest operas deserving of the name’, which begs
the question what the others were, but it certainly fits.
There is an earlier recording, edited and conducted by Fabio
Biondi on Dynamic DVD 33537 and CD, CDS537. Like the present
recording it was recorded live; with both you have to ignore
a certain amount of stage shuffle. We don’t seem to have
reviewed it on MusicWeb International but it received a mixed
reception elsewhere, largely because of some vocal shortcomings.
Try the audio version for yourself if you can from the Naxos
Music Library.
There need be no serious reservations about any of the performances
on this Opus Arte recording. You can judge for yourself because
large chunks of this performance, one of just under an hour
- here
- and one of almost two hours - here
- are available on YouTube. Anna Bonitatibus’ performance
of Dido’s lament, with French subtitles, is here;
neither sound nor picture is much to write home about by comparison
with the finished product on DVD and blu-ray but these generous
extracts will give you a good idea of the merits not only of
her singing but also of the quality of that lament - a serious
challenge to Purcell’s When I am laid in earth
and even to Monteverdi’s Lamento d’Arianna.
Let me say at the outset that one major recommendation for this
production is the lack of gimmicks in the production. All too
often recent productions of opera have been spoiled by tomfoolery,
such as the shift of the action of the Glyndebourne Rinaldo
to a boarding school, thereby diminishing the value of some
very good singing. There’s very little of that here, though
I’m not sure why Venus has to depart from Troy and arrive
in Carthage lugging a modern suitcase, or why Dido from the
outset is not wearing the dark mourning clothes which Anna begs
her to put aside. Worst of all, though mild by comparison with
that Rinaldo, why does the same dead stag grace the stage
in Troy and in Carthage? Why a dead stag when the hunters have
been exclaiming about catching a boar? It’s handily placed
to provide the blood which Dido smears on herself - and, apparently
on the conductor during the curtain call.
Anna Bonitatibus as Dido is first-class; her powerful mezzo
voice is as resplendent as her wonderful name and Krešimir
špicer’s Æneas is hardly far behind - just
occasionally I thought that he pushed the tone a little too
hard as he was warming up at the start of Act 1. In quieter
moments he sounds mellifluous right from the beginning, especially
when he bids farewell to Dido. I’d encountered Ms Bonitatibus
before as Juno in Ercole Amante and Krešimir špicer
as an effective Ulysses in the Virgin Classics DVD of Monteverdi’s
Il Ritorno d’Ulisse (4906129). They lead a strong
cast here and I hope to hear both again.
There are absolutely no weak spots in the singing; the only
time I had even the slightest concern was when Francesco Javier
Borda as Jupiter failed to be quite convincing with the cruelly
deep notes which Cavalli has given him. Otherwise he manages
the very different roles of Jupiter and Sinon extremely well,
exulting in the wicked deception which he has wrought in the
latter role. Cavalli’s audience would be classically savvy
enough to recall that he was the inventor of the Trojan horse.
Of the other dual roles, Ascanius and Cupid are required to
double by the plot and Terry Wey, boyish in appearance and tone
of voice, carries off both excellently. Only the combination
of Creusa and Juno is problematic - no sooner have we got used
to seeing Tehila Nini Goldstein as the first than she has to
change gear considerably as the exulting goddess. Claire Debono
doubles Iris in the Prologue and Venus. Having played the former
pretty straight, I thought her just a little too coquettish
as Venus. That does at least mirror her reputation in the renaissance,
as depicted in Boticelli’s Venus and Mars.
One other small reservation concerns Anchises; he’s frequently
referred to as decrepit - in Virgil Æneas has to carry
him on his back and in Cavalli’s libretto he calls himself
decrepito - yet he looks rather too sprightly here. We
wouldn’t want him to sing in a comic old-man’s voice
- this is La Didone not La Calisto, where Hugues
Cuénod had such a field day - so it’s just a convention
that we have to respond to with willing disbelief. Similarly,
the abruptness of Creusa’s death, her dying exclamation,
subsequent ghostly reappearance, and the expiration of Coroebus
must be thought of as theatrical conventions just like similar
abrupt deaths and reappearances in Jacobean Revenge Plays and
Victorian melodrama. By and large, there’s nothing here
that has to be taken as convention that we are not likely to
find in a Handel opera. There is some scope for comic relief
in the form of Iarbas’s madness, but it’s hardly
slapstick; it’s less emotive than Vivaldi and Handel were
to make the madness of Orlando, and it’s certainly not
overdone here. Nor is the brief scene where Neptune grapples
with Jupiter for interfering in his domain over-played.
That death of Corœbus gives Cavalli the opportunity to
write a lament for Cassandra of a kind beloved of audiences
of the day. It provides a foretaste of Dido’s lament later;
it was the popularity of Il Lamento d’Arianna that
not only saved it when the rest of Monteverdi’s L’Arianna
was lost but also led its composer to rejig it as a lament for
the Virgin Mary.
William Christie’s direction can almost be taken to guarantee
a fine performance and that’s the case here. We see him
standing at the outset before quite a large orchestra, in front
of a harpsichord. I don’t know how often he plays it,
but there seems to be another keyboard in the continuo - it
and the other continuo instruments can (just) be heard where
it matters and that’s a pleasant change from some modern
recordings where the harpsichord might just as well not be there.
The recording sounds well enough as played on television but
much better via my audio system. I haven’t seen or heard
the blu-ray version, which doubtless improves on the sound and
picture of the DVD, but you certainly wouldn’t be in any
way disappointed with the latter. The camera-work is mostly
unobtrusive; in the brighter lighting of Acts 2 and 3, the chitarrone
sticking up into the picture is a little distracting, but it
probably could not have been avoided. Just occasionally individual
voices catch the microphone less than ideally as the actor moves
across the stage; this particularly when heard on headphones.
Slightly more often the stage noises are a little distracting,
especially when heard in audio only.
The notes are far too minimal - a two-page essay in three languages
on the Cavalli revival, but no libretto or even synopsis, just
a brief plot outline, which is a serious problem. The subtitles,
though good, are no substitute. There’s an online Italian
libretto here
and another with English translation here.
There are subtitles in English, French and German only; could
we not also have had them in the original Italian? The English
translation is mainly accurate, though there’s the odd
inevitably typo and an occasional questionable translation -
why call Giove and Mercurio, the Latin deities, by their Greek
names, Zeus and Hermes in the subtitles? When Dido describes
herself in the final scene as Iarbas’ ancella e sposa,
the first word signifies handmaid or slave, not friend as it’s
translated.
As I was tidying up this review I noticed that one music magazine
has made this the thoroughly deserved DVD/Blu-ray Recording
of the Month, a title which I was also tempted to bestow. If
you wish to have only one Cavalli recording in your collection,
this would vie strongly for that honour, ahead of Ercole
Amante and alongside the inauthentic but hugely enjoyable
Raymond Leppard recording of La Calisto (no longer available
on CD; download from amazon.co.uk).
You may even find yourself preferring La Didone to Monteverdi.
Brian Wilson
Anna Bonitatibus - Didone-Dido 
OA1080D [176:14]