SO JEALOUS!!!1! Dude, can we be soulmates? That’s my opera of choice these days and I’ve been sampling various recordings on YouTube. Thanks for giving me another to put in the hopper. I’m not sure how I feel about those reinterpretations, though. I tend to be a pretty conservative opera fan. Here’s one I ran across the other day and enjoyed for a bit:
But can I tell you how dumb I am about opera? Part of what makes me prefer one recording to another is the acting, and in a little chamber opera like Dido and Aeneas, it’s all the more important. There are a couple of moments in Dido and Aeneas that will ruin the whole thing for me if a line reading is blown, especially since Purcell is using little singing recitative bits instead of just talking. So when Aeneas declares, “Let Dido smile and I’ll defy the feeble stroke of destiny!”, if the actor doesn’t get the right amount of “oomph!” into the line, I’m all, “Dude, come on, you just whiffed the turning point of the story…”
Anyway, yeah, that’s the opera I’ve been listening to that had me stick a picture of Purcell into my profile now that the game is over. And it’s not like I’m a big Purcell fan or anything. I like Verdi’s crowd-pleasers and the famous Wagner operas. That’s so random that you and I are both listening to Dido and Aeneas!
Anyway, get in there and save your civilization from an exploding sun. Don’t tell the other guys, but I’m totally going to be rooting for you to win!
-Tom