Artistic Director | David Bates
Purcell: Dido and Aeneas
Recorded in the immediate wake of LNM's first BBC Proms appearance in 2022, a fresh account of Purcell's only all-sung opera, with Fleur Barron, Matthew Brook, Giulia Semenzato, Tim Mead and Nicky Spence - several making their Pentatone debuts.
BBC Radio 3 Record Review, “Recording of the Week”
Named on Gramophone's recordings-of-the-year list
Released by Pentatone and featuring Fleur Barron, Matthew Brook, Giulia Semenzato, Tim Mead, Nicky Spence, David Bates and La Nuova Musica
“I just thought this was so brilliant from the first note... you keep hearing imaginative flourishes from them which just drive everything forward and underpin the singers in the most wonderful way.”
- BBC Radio 3 Record Review
La Nuova Musica and its artistic director David Bates present Henry Purcell’s most widely admired work, Dido and Aeneas. With Nathum Tate’s libretto based on Virgil’s Aeneid Book IV, Dido and Aeneas is a miniature opera, as well as the only all-sung opera Purcell ever composed.
Constantly juxtaposing different moods, colours, orchestrations, this semi-opera enjoys the popularity for its “tunefulness, evocative power, and [...]its conciseness”. The guiding star that David Bates wants to follow for this recording is making sure that Purcell’s Italian, French, and English musical influences are all emphasized – by adding a typically Italian harp to the continuo or by doubling the strings with winds in the French tradition. Dido and Aeneas includes one of the most touching operatic laments “When I am laid in earth”.
A cast of first-class singers with strong musical personalities offer an eclectic interpretation together with a chorus that creates a visceral and intrinsically dramatic soundworld. Dido and Aeneas is David Bates and La Nuova Musica’s fourth Pentatone release, after the acclaimed Gluck Orfeo and Euridice (2019) and Handel’s Unsung Heroes (2021), as well as Beauteous Softness (2023) where they joined forces with counter-tenor Tim Mead. Mead previously released Pentatone’s Handel Messiah (2020) with Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. Star tenor Nicky Spence, Fleur Barron, Matthew Brook, Avery Amereau and Giulia Semenzato all make their Pentatone debut.
We are hugely grateful to all those trusts and individuals who supported us in making this recording.
CAST LIST
Dido - Fleur Barron, mezzo-soprano
Aeneas - Matthew Brook, bass-baritone
Belinda - Giulia Semenzato, soprano
Sorceress - Avery Amereau, alto
Second Lady - Hilary Cronin, soprano
Sailor - Nicky Spence, tenor
Spirit - Tim Mead, countertenor
First Witch - Helen Charlston, mezzo-soprano
Second Witch - Martha McLorinan, mezzo-soprano
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