Dido and Aeneas
The Abbey Church, North Berwick 30/5/25
Hadley Court Singers, Philip Redfern, director/spinet
It’s a Dido day! As I got ready for this event I received the programme for the Lammermuir Festival. They’re doing “Dido and & Aeneas” too. Went to the wrong church! It looked worryingly quiet though it was busy enough in the morning for the annual Rotary Jumble Sale. Churches do serve the community, even us unbelievers.
The performers are all in black except the conductor who sports an orange tunic. Before things get underway he gives us a lively biography of Purcell including speculation about his death (by chocolate?). He points out that tonight’s text, by a second-rate poet, might be riddled with clunky rhymes. “But you can ignore that; the music conveys an extraordinary depth of emotion“. We are now going to travel to “the long ago and far away” via the court of Charles II to ancient Carthage.
The performance opens with what is in fact a string quartet; the keyboard can hardly be heard. Dido (Eve Doyle) wears a diadem and a band of gold, the nearest to a costume among the performers. With a powerful effortless voice, she’s the tallest woman on stage but when Aeneas (Orlando Mason) appears he dwarfs her completely – he’s a giant.
The ensemble contains a rich diversity from the international to the local. Mason has played leading roles all across Europe, while I recognise one of my immediate neighbours among the chorus. The organist Alex Everett I got to know in a pub in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago. Anna Williams, in the role of Belinda, is a fully engaged research neurologist at Edinburgh University; her voice, expressive and strong, is a match for the full-time professionals. As we approach the interval my impression is that the music is performed with supreme skill, though not deeply touching the emotions.
In the interval I find myself chatting to my friend the organist Alex and then to director Philip Redfern as he tunes his spinet. A teacher by nature as well as by profession, he explains to me in a few moments the history of the instrument, the nature of the walnut wood it’s made of, that it’s really a drawing room instrument, largely inaudible to the audience but helping to guide the performers. It’s his last performance with this group; he’s about to step away from full-time commitment and see what comes his way.
The second half begins with an extra overture. Again it’s a kind of quartet, elegant and melancholy, perhaps anticipating Dido‘s fate. The Sorceress (Sarah Moore) sings from the high pulpit, dominating the scene. The program describes her as soprano but this vibrating fullness is surely mezzo if not deeper. The story reaches its climax as Dido and Aeneas come almost to blows over his departure. Dido dismisses him with a repeated “Away!”. She then touches us all singing her lament, the most famous part of the piece, her despair echoed by the choir. She takes off her crown, loosens her hair and walks away through the audience. The story ‘s climax gets full dramatic treatment; till now we’ve been watching a restrained concert performance, now we witness the drama. Somewhere inside me there’s a whisper, “This is what you came here for.”
The evening demonstrated again what a great music scene we are lucky to enjoy in Edinburgh and East Lothian, where dedicated amateurs mix with top professionals to make wonderful sounds.
