A stage almost completely free of sets and props. Black floor, black curtains and scrims – but strikingly beautiful red and orange backdrops. Black pants and lacy tops worn by everyone on stage, perhaps deliberately unifying chorus members, soloists and acrobats, contrasted only by the white splash of smooth, tuxedo-wearing Aeneas and queen Dido’s orange hair. The visual experience is mesmerising from the opening tableaux’s row of candles, from behind which Dido soliloquises about her fate, while her acrobatic altar-ego walks calmly across the stage on a tightrope. The creative work of director and stage designer Yaron Lifschitz, sensitively assisted by lighting designer Matthew Marshall’s innovative treatment of shadows, colour contrasts and silhouettes, remain as some of the strongest memories of this performance, premiered first at Opera Queensland last year.
Lifschitz is Artistic Director of Circa, a Brisbane-based circus company, and the appeal and values of his production are significantly underpinned by the work of the ten acrobats he brought with him to the Sydney Opera House. Their death-defying acts on floor and trapeze, climbing on poles or hanging from silk ropes, are never less than enthralling. A combination of circus acts, acrobatics and contemporary ballet, the work is vastly entertaining and professional, although synchronisation is not their strongest point.
Because visual effects tend to provide easier satisfaction to our senses than sonic ones, it is only natural that their work often distracts from the music and story of Purcell’s sublime opera, Dido and Aeneas. A further issue is that their acrobatic mastery seldom comments on, explicates or even disputes the events of Virgil’s epic poem, The Aeneid, on which this late 17th-century opera is based, but appears to flow independently from it, as a second layer and source of artistic joy. While this may be regarded on the surface as a simple artistic decision, looking at the wider picture, it may be another indication that Opera Australia, the nation’s flagship company but much troubled in recent times, does not trust the taste and expectations of its audience to appreciate an opera without significant add-on enjoyments.
The musical aspects of the performance were decisively led by Erin Helyard, one of Australia’s foremost Early Music experts, making his debut with the Orchestra and Chorus of Opera Australia. The musicians responded sensitively to his flexible tempos, gentle rubatos and expert understanding of the English Baroque style, with an especially strong continuo group propelling matters forwards in the many recitativo sections.
As there is no original manuscript of this opera available (our earliest source is a copied score from about 70 years after the first performance), the musical material allows for some artistic freedom. In this case, the extensive Prologue seemed to be taken from other Purcell compositions of incidental music and the so-called “Shivering Chorus”, featuring great choral contributions, is known from the composer’s semi-opera, King Arthur. Under Helyard’s guidance, the ensemble created a refined musical style, mostly bereft of vibrato, yet rich in contrasts and full of musical energies.
In contrast, the solo singers seemed to be unconcerned with (or undirected towards) the delicate details of historically informed techniques. Without exception, they all delivered their parts with emotion and some fine details, yet without strong vocal distinctions and dressed in their uniform costumes, it was often hard to differentiate between them.
The role of the hero, Aeneas is unfortunately nowhere near as exciting in its dramatic powers as that of Dido, the Queen of Carthage, and Nicholas Jones could not convince us otherwise. He has a fine stage presence but in his final duet with Dido, the duty of founding Rome clearly won over love, and he left. Great for posterity, as we were left with Dido’s Lament and the final chorus. These two numbers (without any acrobatics) focused entirely on the musical elements and proved to be the most effective moments of the production. Anna Dowsley’s refined Dido (even if earlier she was vacillating between traditional and minimal forms of vibrato) now sat on a chair, centre-stage, forlorn and solitary, in almost complete darkness and sang her harrowing farewell to life and love. Meanwhile, the members of the chorus lined up on the two sides of the Stalls and their final number mourned her demise (“With drooping wings”) in perfect ensemble, despite the significant physical distance amongst themselves and their conductor.
