Purcell: Dido & Aeneas; Circe – incidental music

Purcell
Dido and Aeneas; Circe incidental music
Camille Allérat, Renato Dolcini, Julie Roset, Anthea Pichanick, Ana Vieira Leite; Les Argonautes/Jonas Descotte
Aparté AP296   61:06 mins

It is not easy to strike the right balance when performing Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. It was written for a girls’ school and has very thin accompaniments; apart from the famous last aria ‘When I am laid in earth’, we do not have Purcell’s original manuscript so some embellishments will be conjectural, and as a stage work the pace of the music was clearly conceived so as to give it time to be acted out – though here some of the dances and duets (‘But ere we this perform’), and the poignant aria ‘Oft she visits this lone mountain’ (marked ‘Allegretto’) flash by in something of a swirl.

The singers are generally good. Camille Allérat brings a passionate voice to the role of Dido (though occasionally with unsteady vibrato), and Renato Dolcini as Aeneas inserts drama into the somewhat pallidly written role. Julie Roset as Belinda adds delicate and tasteful decoration (‘Thanks to these lonesome vales’), and Ana Vieira Leite makes a vengeful sorceress, even dropping down an octave in ‘Our next motion’ for sinister effect.

Somewhat disappointing, though, is the chorus, who do not just comment upon the drama but also participate in the action and so should sing the music in character. The witch’s chorus ‘Destruction’s our delight’ really needs more of a cackle at the ‘Ho, ho, ho’ repetitions to prevent it from sounding like a fa la la madrigal (or a chorus of Father Christmases). Even so a commendable start to Les Argonaute’s recording career, especially with the inclusion of the rarely performed Circe theatre music.

Anthony Pryer