Dido and Aeneas begins in earnest......

We had a Dido and Aeneas mini rehearsal today ! My Belinda is M who played Patience in the last show, and she is now away at boarding school so comes home for weekends and half terms which is when she can have a lesson ! I can get my Dido and Aeneas on a Saturday afternoon after they have finished work, so we set to with a will and cracked some of the tricky conversational passages ! 

The style is very far from Gilbert and Sullivan or Britten and it is a big challenge for my young singers. They will do it brilliantly in the end, but a Purcell style is, at first hearing, quite tough to grasp. The recit passages, which are recit and yet are not as they are 'in time' so to speak need some explaining ! Also the text is very tricky, i.e. ' See, upon my spear a monsters head lies bleeding, with tushes more than Venus' huntsman ever tear' !! Now there is a sentence and a half ! My youngsters are utterly fantastic and once these archaic words are translated into modern parlance they take off and sing with a will!

We got halfway through which gave the three principals plenty of work to do, and retired to the living room to discuss such important things as Greek style dresses, colour schemes for 'good' and 'evil', and how unusual this opera is in that evil triumphs.

It is such beautiful music, and when it is soaked in their bones they will love it as much as I do. Such word painting and such wonderfully sad melodies, and the most poignant final chorus....

'With drooping wings ye cupids come, and scatter roses on her tomb. Soft and gentle is her heart. Keep here keep watch and never, never part'

Ah.........

A beautiful rendition of the final chorus, directed by Anna Pope with whom I taught for many years at the JRAM.