By Elsa Johnson & Victor Lucas
Call us lowbrows, but what little we know about opera often comes to us through stagings that involve dance; Walt Disney’s version of the Dance of the Hours from La Gioconda or Mark Morris as Dido in his dance group’s staging of Dido and Aeneas.
We saw a staging of Dido and Aeneas at Cleveland Institute of Music’s Kulas Hall on Saturday, one that didn’t involve dance but successfully bridged the gap between a contemporary audience and Henry Purcell’s 1688 baroque English opera and put the focus on the music.
“The action takes place in a recording studio in the late 1930s,” explained a program note and with that the singers were freed from any expectation that they embody heroic, tragic persons from the bronze age. “Would you like coffee, tea, water?” fawned Armando Contreras as the Record Producer as he waxed obsequious over the diva singing Dido, Elizabeth Frey. The Chorus lounged and fidgeted upstage acting for all the world like exactly who and what they were, singers waiting for their turn to sing.
The costume plot possibly drew on the personal wardrobes of the cast, but it represented the 1930s well enough; period-appropriate dresses and suits with appropriate hats and hairstyles. Costume, Wig and Makeup Designer Alison Garrigan made it look much easier than it possibly could have been.
Director David Bamberger gave Leading Performers Frey and Brian Skoog as Aeneas interactions that created a 1930s narrative parallel to the seduced-and-abandoned narrative of Dido and Aeneas. Skoog initially accepted Frey’s overtures but then rejected them, not because of a message from the gods, but because he preferred the tall tenor from the chorus, Reid Taylor. Bamberger’s Dido and Aeneas used a backstage romance to give contemporary relevance to an old theater piece.
We enjoyed all the singing in Dido and Aeneas, but of the principals, Ellyn Glasscock, Casey Gardner and Megan Thompson as the Sorceress and 2 Witches seemed especially good in their roles, smirking and bitter as they plotted Dido’s ruin. Why do they hate the Queen of Carthage so?
The Chorus consistently pleased our ears; kudos to Chorus Master Dean Southern.
Also on the program Saturday, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Riders to the Sea, 2 instrumental pieces by William Walton, and the Finale from Benjamin Britten’s Simple Symphony, Harry Davidson conducting.
Dido and Aeneas was presented by Cleveland Institute of Music Opera Theater at Kulas Hall February 26 thru March 1. http://cim.edu
[Photo: L Dennison]
From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas. Elsa and Vic are both longtime Clevelanders. Elsa is a landscape designer. She studied ballet as an avocation for 2 decades. Vic has been a dancer and dance teacher for most of his working life, performing in a number of dance companies in NYC and Cleveland. They write about dance as a way to learn more and keep in touch with the dance community. E-mail them at vicnelsaATearthlink.net.