Our First Cavalli La Didone c/o Medici

[lennygoran]

Our First Cavalli La Didone c/o Medici

Cast

Clément Hervieu-Léger — Stage director

Éric Ruf — Stage design

Caroline de Vivaise — Costumes

Bertrand Couderc — Lighting

Valérie Nègre — Artistic collaboration

Pierre Judet de la Combe — Collaboration to the dramaturgy

Rita de Letteriis — Linguistic advice

Anna Bonitatibus — Dido

Kresimir Spicer — Ænas

Claire Debono — Venus, Iris, a young woman

Tehila Nini Goldstein — Creusa, Juno

Katherine Watson — Cassandra, a young woman

Mariana Rewerski — Anna, La Fortuna, a young woman

Xavier Sabata — Iarba

Terry Wey — Ascanius, Amore, a hunter

Valerio Contaldo — Coroebus, Aeolus, a hunter

Joseph Cornwell — Hecate, Neoptolemus

Maria Streijffert — Hecuba

Mathias Vidal — Illion, Mercury

Francisco Javier Borda — Sinon, Neptune

Victor Torres — Anchises, an old man

Les Arts Florissants

William Christie — Conductor

We didn't like it-can't blame the production or the singers-the opera really dragged on. Where was Berlioz when we needed him! Well this review from the musicweb felt otherwise and most people from Amazon had good things to say about it but the last review agreed with us. Regards, Len

Music Web review

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


and from Amazon

1.Gio
5.0 out of 5 stars Three Centuries of Oblivion!
Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2012
Verified Purchase
A century of da capo, a century of Heldenwhoop and soapy verismo, a century of a-tonal expressionism ... Who could have predicted that the Wheel of Fortune would turn so far and that Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676) would suddenly become the 'hottest new thing" in the world of opera??? Five of Cavalli's 27 extant operas have been revived and released on DVD in about a decade:
Cavalli - La Calisto
Cavalli: Ercole Amante [Blu-ray ]
Il Giasone [Blu-ray ]
Cavalli: La virtu de' strali d'Amore (The Power of Cupid's Arrows)
Cavalli - La Didone
And here now, a second production of La Didone, musically far superior to the previous effort. Hallelujah!

Cavalli has generally been regarded as a disciple of Monteverdi, and some musicologists have suggested that he worked closely with Monteverdi on the completion of L'Incoronazione di Poppea. But one doesn't need a course in music history to hear the continuation of Monteverdi's art in Cavalli's music. La Didone is the most Monteverdi-esque of the Cavalli operas resuscitated so far. It's a twin to Poppea in both musical and dramatic language. Like Poppea, the bulk of the libretto is sung in recitativo over basso continuo, plus boisterous, often sardonic ritornelli sung usually by ensembles of minor characters. The most ambiguous character -- Dido's would-be lover King Iarbas -- is both fool and philosopher, combining the Monteverdi characters of Ottone and Seneca. The famous love duet that concludes L'Incoronazione, between Nerone and Poppea, has a parallel in La Didone. The "Gods" are just as meddlesome and captious in Cavalli's comi-tragedy as in Monteverdi's tragi-comedy. Don't get the impression, however, that La Didone is merely a knock-off of Poppea! It's a work of almost equal brilliance; when we get to know it as well as we know the three surviving operas of Monteverdi, we may decide to erase the word "almost" from that judgment.

La Didone is darker in mood than Poppea, less aloof from folly and therefore less disposed to mockery. The libretti of both operas were written by Giovanni Busenello, and both are taut, subtle expression of 17th Century skepticism. La Didone has the better flourishes of Italian poetic language, the vibrancy of which survives translation into English in the subtitles. 17th C opera sought the ideal fusion of words and music -- eloquent words, to which the music was intentionally subordinated. The story of Dido and Aeneas would be set in operatic form again and again, with Berlioz's Les Troyens as the grandest setting, but no post-1700 libretto has had the poetic charms of Busenello's.

For us of the 21st C, of course, it's the music that matters far more than the poetry or the drama. Let's be frank about this staging: not a cent was lavished on costumes that could have been spent for the hiring of voices. The result is a cast of fourteen superb singers, each of whom gets moments of exquisite display, all primped up in bathrobes. Don't fret! The acting aplomb of most of them, supported by crafty camera-work, is enough to compensate for the stodgy sets and costumes. And even the weakest actors -- Terry Wey, for instance, in the role of Ascanio -- more than justify themselves vocally.

La Didone is not an orchestral opera, even by 17th C norms. The instrumentalists in the pit have merely the briefest flurries of notes not subordinated to the singing. Nonetheless, the sixteen members of Les Arts Florissants deserve equal credit for the glory of this music. The ensemble includes recorder, 2 violins, 2 violas, cello, gamba, lyrone, double-bass, dulcian, harp, theorbo, lute, guitar, and 2 harpsichords. That's a rich continuo, amici miei! Conductor William Christie is the genius who holds it all together.
Viva Bill Christie! Viva!

2. M. Howard
3.0 out of 5 stars Cavalli's Magnificent Music and a Super Depressing Set...that needs to go!
Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2017
The music and the performers are stunning but the set is dreary and depressing, with few changes and takes away from Cavalli's important and gorgeous music. How long would anyone want to continue looking at a huge dead deer carcass? It's hard to believe that William Christie would like this production design. Cavalli is always wonderful and ought to be staged elegantly and beautifully.

3. H. A. Weedon
5.0 out of 5 stars An Inspiring, Enjoyable Multi-watch Performance.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 12, 2017
Verified Purchase
We have here an early work by Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676) from the early days of opera in the first half of the Seventeenth Century with its first performance in the Teatro San Cassiano in Venice on 24 January 1641. Thinking I must make allowances for all of this, I wasn't expecting too much, but I was agreeably surprised. Both staging and direction were near perfect for this latter day interpretation of Cavalli's genius. Although initially puzzled by the choice of costumes I soon realised that, although seemingly 'modern', they were actually suggestive of what might have been worn in Greco-Trojan times, which is actually better than adopting some form of kitsch period costumes, which is something that happens all too often.

There's an inspiring rapport between acting, singing and staging. Everything is rewardingly suggestive without ever being 'overdone' and giving the sense of real people re-acting in all the real ways that real people do, giving the viewer the feeling of them being 'just like us.' It's the 'I knew someone just like that who got all mixed up as to which man she should love' syndrome. The signing, orchestration and acting are so good that they remind us of the every day folk all around us.

4. Pdon
3.0 out of 5 stars Tedious
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 30, 2015
Verified Purchase
This is one revival too many in my view. As a production it is poor. A very strange set { why was there a dead stag on stage}. No audience reaction- presumably they were asleep. Very difficult to distinguish the different characters especially in the first act. Can any tell me if Didone or was it Dido, killed herself in the end. As for the music of Cavalli Was there at any point an aria? It felt like three hours of tedious spoken music. The booklet speaks of his 'talent for comic scenes'. Well I must have missed these. I think I have been over generous with 3 stars.