BWW Blog: Jakob Creighton - Context is Everything

Wow! I can't believe that this is my first blog! It's also hard to believe that opera rehearsals start Friday!!

Throughout the next five months, I will be recounting my experience performing in Purcell's (only all-sung) opera, Dido and Aeneas (c. 1684-1688).

This blog will be more centred on the composer and the opera (and who I'm playing).

First, I should talk about Purcell... He was a Baroque composer and for the most part, he wrote vocal pieces. He did write musical dramatic works, however the only true opera that he wrote was Dido and Aeneas. The remaining "operas" are semi-operas, meaning that the dialogue is spoken. The main component that differs in Dido and Aeneas is the fact that rather than spoken dialogue, it is all written in the Italian recitative-style. We don't really know when it was composed, some specialists state that it was in 1688 and performed for the first time in 1689 at a girls' school, while others state that it could have been written as early as 1684.

Second, it should be noted that the opera being performed today is possibly not what was written by Purcell himself. No original copy of the opera exists today. The only full (or close to it) version that exists was edited in the early 20th century. This version is based on a concert version, not the full version. The opera was performed in the 18th century, however they were concert versions. It was not performed for a hundred years following these.

This is my first time performing in a Baroque opera, so I'm very excited... Keep in mind that I've only been in two operas with the university to date, both Mozart. The first was "La Clemenza di Tito" (The Clemency of Titus) as a Chorus Member, and the second was "Le Nozze di Figaro" (The Marriage of Figaro) as Bartolo. I was in a third opera called "Street Scene" by Kurt Weill (written in 1946). Baroque operas are sung very differently than classical or modern operas, they include a lot more improvisation and can vary in tempo... This is particularly true with Dido and Aeneas, since there are no real tempo markings, simply "Quick" and "Slow". This leaves much room for individual interpretation of the tempos.

I will be playing Aeneas, the Trojan hero, lover of Dido, and Demigod son of Venus (Aphrodite).

Okay! Now that the boring history is out of the way, we can get right into the rehearsals in the next blog! I'm hoping to have a few photos and maybe even a video from our first rehearsal!! Stay tuned!! (It will get more interesting, I promise!)

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