What happened after Dido died? BarokOpera Amsterdam’s Dido and Aeneas

By Sanne Thierens, 03 April 2014

Loading, please wait...

See full listing

Reviewed at Theater De Meervaart, Amsterdam on 16 March 2014

Purcell, Dido and Aeneas

BarokOpera Amsterdam

Frédérique Chauvet, Conductor

Sybrand van der Werf, Director

Mattijs Hoogendijk, 1st Enchantress

Caroline Cartens, Dido

Wendy Roobol, Belinda

Pieter Hendriks, 2nd Enchantress

Jan Kullmann, Sorceress

Joost van Velzen, Aeneas

BarokOpera Amsterdam premières a hilarious romp through history with Henry Purcell

Kristen Huebner, 6th February

The musical depth of 17th-century English composer Henry Purcell received an overwhelmingly heartfelt and hilarious production from BarokOpera Amsterdam this week. The group has collected a milieu of music from the composer in addition to a colorful commentary on the lives of King William III and Queen Mary to paint an entirely vivid, and candid, picture of history through a modern lens.

****1

Regents Opera’s Salome lands a knockout punch at York Hall

Mark Pullinger, 10th April

Mark Ravenhill directs a brutal, bloody Salome for Regents Opera at the spiritual home of British boxing, York Hall.

****1

Art imitates art in ETO's bracing new Pagliacci

Dominic Lowe, 10th April

Divorced from Cavalleria rusticana, English Touring Opera's contemporary take on Leoncavallo's masterpiece ticks all the boxes.

****1

Handel's Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno returns to Rome

Pia Maltri, 7th April

Robert Carsen's staging of Handel's oratorio arrives, via Salzburg, in the city where Handel composed it in 1707.

****1

Innocence: Saariaho’s final opera receives New York premiere

Kurt Gottschalk, 6th April

At the Metropolitan Opera, Innocence proves a gripping and perhaps divisive piece which feels real because it is a reflection of our reality, with no realistic hope of finding peace.

*****

Parsifal without the hocus-pocus in Lower Bavaria

Peter Quantrill, 4th April

A colourful, revue-style production dispels the clouds of mystique surrounding Wagner's last opera.

****1

More reviews...

Sanne Thierens

Sanne is passionate about music and theatre and interested in what happens when the two are combined. She studied Liberal Arts and Sciences with majors in Musicology, Theatre & Media Studies and Piano Performance. After completing her degree at University College Roosevelt (Middelburg, The Netherlands), Sanne moved to London where she obtained an MA degree in Musicology from King’s College, University of London.