Dido & Aeneas
Spitalfields Festival. Armonico Consort
Village Underground, 9 June 2015

I’m not sure if the ‘alternative’ venue of Village Underground (with old London underground trains, converted into artist’s studios, on the roof) was the ideal venue for this performance of Dido & Aeneas, not least given the nature of Armonico Consort’s rather staid production. It was also singularly unwise of director Christopher Monks to tell us all in his introductory talk that we would have “never seen a performance like this before”. I am still not quite sure what he meant by that remark, but it kept me waiting for something special or unusual to happen – which it didn’t. His comment did turn out to be true, in a way, but not in the way that I think he intended. Continue reading →