Search - Sarah Connolly, Gerald Finley, Lucy Crowe :: Purcell: Dido & Aeneas

Good but Questionable

Bart A. Dunn | Maryland, USA | 08/13/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This recording of Dido is good. I mean to say that the music is performed at an acceptable level. There were a couple of things that I found to be questionable. First, and the most irritating was the lack of emotion in the music. I found the performance to be very flat. All of the chromaticism that adds to the drama was ignored, or at least not brought out. After all this is opera, and is supposed to be dramatic. the performance of some of the vocalists were a bit shaky too. I was very surprised, Sarah Connolly's diction at times was intolerable, I was not able to make out the english. This isn't like Britten opera, the english should be able to be understood. The tempos were much to slow, the overture for example was much to slow. The dotted rhythms of the "french" overture were ignored. This adds to the drama and I was shocked that it was ignored. Finally the addition of the added movements was unnecessary. The Liner notes give some lame excuse why they put it in. Whether or not the end of Act II has been lost, other musicologists argue that Purcell did not set this part, if it has been lost, then do not add anything in. These may be good for a staging, and I would welcome them, with proper research, but for a recording purpose I disagree.

I do not regret purchasing this album, I always like to see other people's interpretations of a work, but I was a little disappointed. If I had to choose between this and another recording, I would have to go with Emmanuelle Haïm's recording."