Great Performances (TV Series) Dido & Aeneas (1995) User Reviews

The best Dido and Aeneas on DVD available?

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 13 May 2012]

I'd say yes. Although there are times when the lip-synching is distracting, this is a great film production of Purcell's masterpiece. It is visually stunning, with fluid and very cinematic-looking video directing and very elegant and stately costumes and settings, and the way everything is staged, though it is too cluttered in places, ensures there is rarely, if ever, a dull moment. I did like that fire was used as a persistent theme throughout the production. The music is beautiful and stays in your head for a long time after, especially Dido's lament When I Am Laid in Earth, and the orchestra and conducting perform the score as sensitively as they possibly can.

The singing is great. Maria Ewing I think excels as Dido, she is a moving actress and as always whether in the rapid passages or in When I Am Laid in Earth sings like a nightingale. Karl Daymond is a handsome and vocally well-produced Aeneas, while Rebecca Evans delights especially vocally as Belinda. James Bowman only has about twenty or so bars of music, but the singing as Mercury still manages to be among the best of the cast. The witches are genuinely fearsome and tackle their roles with relish. Sally Burgess is outstanding with her amazing phrasing particularly striking. The chorus are expressive and well-balanced. Overall, a great(if not perfect) film production, and for me the best Dido and Aeneas on DVD. 9/10 Bethany Cox

...Remember me

[Gyran · 4/10 · 26 December 2004]

The BBC has always had a problem with televised opera: it costs a lot to put on and it often receives a zero audience rating. This 1995 film is probably a response to this problem. It is a glossy film populated by beautiful people, miming to Purcell's opera. It is very difficult to work out what is going on, partly because the film concentrates on looking beautiful rather than illustrating the narrative. The words are largely unintelligible, possibly because of the aforementioned miming. In fact, I was only able to follow the plot because I recently saw Berlioz's Les Troyens, which covers similar territory.

Apart from the reservation about intelligibility, the opera is well sung, particularly by the two leads, Maria Ewing and Karl Daymond. James Bowman sings the role of Mercury but, perhaps wisely, gets someone else to sit in a tree and mime his part. Maria Ewing is perhaps the worst lip-syncher that I have ever seen. This is not a criticism: it is not part of an opera singer's job description to be able to lip-sync. At the end, she sings "When I am laid in earth… remember me" but the rest of the cast do not remember because, in the next scene, we see them cremating her. Perhaps a cremation makes better television than a burial.

Hampton Court as Carthage

[Red-125 · 9/10 · 28 April 2022]

Purcell's opera Dido & Aeneas (1995) was directed by Peter Maniura. It stars Maria Ewing as Dido, and Karl Daymond as Aeneas. Both singers are excellent, and both of them can act.

Purcell's 17th Century style is very different from Donizetti, Verdi, or Puccini. It's wonderful in its own way, but you have to adjust your thinking about how an opera should sound. (Worth the effort--it's great.)

The opera is staged in and around Hampton Court Palace, and there's no end of torches and hunting dogs. Some directors want a stage; director Maniura wanted a castle. Fair enough--Dido was a queen and she would have lived in a castle.

This film is under and hour long, but full of color and excitement. It has a modest IMDb rating of 7.2. I thought that it was better than that, and rated it 9.