Lyrichord Early Music Series' release of Dido and Aeneas is a powerful reminder of the greatness of Purcell's only opera. The early music group
Ama Deus Ensemble conducted by
Valentin Radu turns in a performance of wrenching simplicity and musical and dramatic directness.
Julianne Baird sings with pearly luminosity as the doomed queen Dido, whose grief so overwhelms her that she can hardly whisper her despair. Even when she is barely audible,
Baird's voice is beautifully focused and modulated, and her lament is a triumph. Andrea Lauren Brown as Belinda is fresh-voiced and pure, and
Timothy Bentch's Aeneas is open and heroic. Only Tatyana Rashkovsky as the Sorceress falls short of the remarkably high standards of the rest of the cast, with a voice that tends to stray from pitch. The minor characters and the chorus perform with limberness and idiomatic sensitivity, as does the orchestra of strings and continuo. The CD concludes with a suite of orchestral music from The Fairy Queen, identified here as a suite from A Midsummer Night's Dream. The orchestra plays beautifully, but after the intensity and focus of the opera, the lightness of the suite comes as a letdown. The excellent sound is spacious and clean.