Purcell - Dido and Aeneas

The Guardian 80

Raffaella Milanesi, Richard Helm, La Risonanza, Coro Costanzo Porta/ Bonizzoni
(Challenge)

There are many good reasons to enjoy this live recording: delightfully pungent playing from La Risonanza, crisply articulated chorus work from Coro Costanzo Porta and some fine solo singing are just some, but what really marks it out is its scholarly approach. Using scores prepared for a 1704 London performance, Fabio Bonizzoni recasts the Sorceress as a bass and the Sailor as a soprano. Why? Because the opera was staged with the prologue from Mars and Venus by John Eccles and Godfrey Finger – also heard here – and the vocal parts correlate. (A similar approach, with a separate prologue, was taken at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma in September, with startling results). And an imaginative reappraisal of original pronunciation makes us listen afresh to the familiar libretto. Recommended.