★★★★
George Hall, The Stage
“Wallen’s skilful score offers atmosphere, variety and some impressive characterisation and is finely sung and played in a performance founded on the excellent Baroque specialist Dunedin Consort under conductor John Butt; musical standards are high throughout.”
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Geoff Brown, The Times
“… there was the lively precision of John Butt’s Dunedin Consort, its period instruments regularly spiked with the electric guitars that signalled when Wallen had arrived and Purcell had left.”
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Robert Hugill, Planet Hugill
4.5/5 stars
“… breathtakingly daring yet intelligently done.”
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The Economist
“A conversation across centuries and styles… Dido’s Ghost hauntingly shows that so-called “period” instruments can, and should, play key parts in the music of today.”
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Keith Bruce, Vox Carnyx
“It is desirable beyond argument that Dido’s Ghost becomes a repertoire work.… Dunedin stalwart Matthew Brook has never been better than he is here… Nardus Williams as the supportive Belinda is also a powerful presence, and Scots mezzo Allison Cook is fearsome as Lavinia…”
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★★★★
David Smythe, Bachtrack
“a dramatic and thrilling work… Purcell’s work is performed as a memory masque, not quite bookended by the new work as the ghosts take over and the operas collide at the end with an extraordinary and unexpected twist”
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★★★★
Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian
“Anyone who insists on Purcell pure might find the mix too challenging, yet this new work is bold and moving, a piercing reminder of how the past haunts the present. Dido’s celebrated lament is heard, but not as you expect it. With a conviction that transfixes, Aeneas himself now sings the plaintive, tolling utterance, to devastating effect.”
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