Opera Scotland

Dido and Aeneas 2018Edinburgh Studio Opera

Read more about the opera Dido and Aeneas

For their 2018 season, Edinburgh Studio Opera promised a new look at Dido and Aeneas, Purcell's well known opera - and this was exactly what we got. Virgil's tragic love affair becomes less one between Dido and her fiancee, Aeneas, than between Dido and Belinda in a contemporary twist.

The opening is set in the rehearsal room at Cinecitta film studios; Belinda awakes in a nightmarish world, when the sorceress (Belinda's darker self) plots the downfall of Aeneas. Finally, Dido and Belinda confess their love for one another and resolve to disappear, not realising that Belinda's fateful pact with the witches will come to haunt them both.

Whatever one's feelings about the changes to the story line, it was certainly well executed and sung, full of nicely observed detail. Freya Holliman as Dido, Sally Carr as Belinda and Johannes Moore as Aeneas all performed well. In what was a fine team effort by ESO, music director William Conway and director Robert Hersey must take great credit. Hersey made the best of the length of the stage to create a dynamic and fluid production, and all in all there was much to enjoy in the performance.

In this, Edinburgh Studio Opera 50th year, their claim to produce the highest quality student opera in Edinburgh, with 'a double bill of a pair of beautifully reimagined and restaged classics' seems fully justified.

Purcell's masterpiece drawn from Virgil's tragic love affair is followed by Puccini's hilarious comical farce, Puccini's Gianni Schicchi.

Tickets for this double bill £15 (£12) Students £6.50