This week we will hear about the groundbreaking 1979 Camerata production and recording of Dido and Aeneas from Camerata Music Director Emeritus Joel Cohen and Board member David Griesinger.
Continue readingMeet Dido cast member Tahanee Aluwihare
Rising opera star Tahanee Aluwihare, who will be interpreting the role of Dido in Camerata’s new production of Purcell’s great masterpiece, shares with us her thoughts on this upcoming adventure.
“I am really looking forward to exploring this powerful feminine role with Tahanee, a major young talent on the North American music scene,” says Artistic Director Anne Azéma. “You can catch a glimpse of Tahanee’s enquiring spirit in this short clip.”
Shanah Tovah!
For some of us it is a New Year! To one and all, here are Camerata’s wishes for a season of firm resolve, courage, and hope, as we strive to make the world a better place.
One such striver was Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. According to Jewish tradition, those who die on the New Year are “tsadikim,” persons of unusual righteousness. And so it is, surely, with her.
This medieval hymn, “Lord of the World,” is heard here in a majestic setting for double choir by Salomone Rossi (1565-1628).
Translation:
My Rock in sorrow’s darkest day;
A Help and Refuge unto me,
My Portion sure, my Shield and Stay.
…. I will not fear.
New to online events? Here’s what you need to know about our plan
Here you can find answers to your questions about our online production
of Dido and Aeneas: An Opera for Distanced Lovers.
A Lament for Lost Lives
- to those who perished in the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001
- to the victims of COVID-19 and all those who have been hurt by this pandemic
- to victims of cruelty, racism and racist violence
- to those who have recently lost loved ones; our recent losses at Camerata include Don Wilkinson and Tim Evans
The soloist in this consoling performance is Patrick Mason.
Anne Azéma, Artistic Director
Joel Cohen, Music Director Emeritus
Camerata Corruption Corps forges on…
…with this rollicking indictment of corruption in high places, circa 1200. Does any of this sound familiar? We are shocked, shocked.
‘Bulla fulminante’ by Philippe le Chancellier
from Carmina Burana, arr. and dir. Joel Cohen
The Boston Camerata, Joel Frederiksen, soloist
Translation:
Truth is suppressed, distraught, and sold …. If you seek preferments, in vain do you advance your record; do not bring up your good conduct, lest you upset a magistrate. In vain do you rely on your erudition, but rather you wail around for months and months, and still you can expect your preferments to be carried off by others, unless you compete with a price of equal weight.
Dido and Aeneas: Streaming Through November 29th
Music by Henry Purcell (1659-1695) – Libretto by Nahum Tate (1652-1715)
This new production of Purcell’s only true opera features performances by live and remote musicians and media elements conceived by Peter Torpey, all stitched together to be viewed from the safety and comfort of your home. Artistic Director Anne Azéma leads a stellar cast, with Tahanee Aluwihare as Dido, Luke Scott as Aeneas, Camila Parias as Dido’s sister Belinda, and Jordan Weatherston Pitts as the Sorcerer, assisted by students from Longy School of Music of Bard College and the Harvard Choral Fellows directed by Edward Elwyn Jones.
The show will be available for streaming, on-demand, from November 14-29, 2020 – ticketbuyers will be emailed links to the show, as well as a pre-concert presentation on Dido and Aeneas by Ellen T. Harris (Professor Emeritus of Music, MIT) and a post-performance conversation between Anne Azéma and Peter Torpey.
Our trailer was created by Peter Torpey featuring music from the 1979 Boston Camerata recording of Dido and Aeneas.
Draining the Medieval Swamp: Chapter II
The CCC (Camerata Corruption Corps) is on the go.
For our musical offering this week, we propose an excerpt from the 14th-century fable Le Roman de Fauvel, which spins out a biting, satirical allegory of malfeasance at the French court through the tale of the malevolent orange animal Fauvel and his efforts to take over France. Rex beatus, sung here by Michael Barrett and Timothy Evans, with Stephen Lundahl on sackbut, gives some advice to the ruling class: Do better! As indeed they should.
Joel Cohen is the narrator. Translation:
Motetus (Tim): Saint Louis now reigns in heaven, with the company of saints. You who bear his name, blood of his blood, follow his path, in a sacred bond.
Triplum (Michael): If a joyous, young, handsome and kind heart loves, it is just. For a noble, tender, and youthful heart should obtain the object of its desire, while others less noble should not know the pleasure of love.
Announcing: The Camerata Corruption Corps!
As we wearily raise our heads, now and then, from the ancient medieval manuscripts that strain our eyes even as they fortify our souls, we notice something odd. Many of the songs and poems we diligently pore over, in Latin, Old French, and Provençal, are actually political polemics! They sound like they were written by today’s disgruntled pundits on Twitter, cable TV, or on the op-ed section of your favorite daily papers.
How could this possibly be? We are shocked, shocked.
And so, we initiate the Camerata Corruption Corps (CCC), a thoughtful enterprise to keep our minds alert and engaged during these humid summer days. We’ll share with you some of the more telling rants-in-music we have unearthed from many centuries back, and we’ll allow you to apply them as you will to the people and events of our own crazy day.
Here is our first offering, Curritur ad vocem, from the thirteenth century Carmina Burana. The subject, bien sûr, is venality and corruption:
Translation:
Everyone is running towards the voice of Money. Everyone goes after that which is forbidden. That’s how to live! If anyone in this business doesn’t know how the world works, let him choose, or disappear: Get what you need, by whatever means necessary. Law is no deterrent; the judiciary doesn’t matter. Virtue is crime.
A Flame Unseen: Queen Dido’s Passionate Desire
Mosaic from the Low Ham Villa (UK), AD 340
In anticipation of Camerata’s new production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, we begin another thread. We’ll follow this powerful story of love and betrayal, as it is transmitted across the centuries.
BUT anxious cares already seiz’d the queen:
She fed within her veins a flame unseen;
The hero’s valor, acts, and birth inspire
Her soul with love, and fan the secret fire.
His words, his looks, imprinted in her heart,
Improve the passion, and increase the smart.
~ Aeneid, Book 4, translated by John Dryden