Purcell's Dido and Aeneas
Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
Dido and Aeneas
The joyless reign of Oliver Cromwell cast a long shadow; as late as 1669 the dancing master Josias Priest was prosecuted for “teaching, practicing and executing music” without a licence. But with the cultural flowering of Charles II’s reign, music and dancing soon became fashionable, and even respectable. By 1680 Priest was teaching these most vital of social accomplishments at a boarding school for young ladies in Chelsea, and he could afford the best teachers. Somewhere around the summer of 1688 (or possibly the previous December) Priest’s talented pupils gave the first staged performance of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas: a delightfully unexpected birth for one of the greatest operas in the English language, and arguably the single greatest opera by any composer between Monteverdi and Handel.
Beyond that, we don’t know much about the creation of Dido and Aeneas. The manuscript is missing, parts of the score (including the entire Prologue) are lost, and the opera went completely unperformed between 1705 and 1895. But Purcell clearly wrote with the girls of the school in mind, creating a range of lively female roles and a score filled with dances – perfectly tailored so the young performers could show off their accomplishments. The result – possibly inspired by Venus and Adonis (1684) by Purcell’s own one-time teacher John Blow (1649-1708) – was unique in its time, and in Purcell’s own output. Most English operas of the era (like Purcell’s King Arthur and The Fairy Queen) were more like masques: essentially highly scenic stage pageants with musical interludes. Dido and Aeneas is driven by music from first to last.
The libretto was by Nahum Tate (1652-1715), the Irish dramatist (and future Poet Laureate) who rewrote King Lear with a happy ending, and who is best known today as the writer of the Christmas carol While Shepherds Watched. Like all educated 17th century gentlefolk, Mr Priest’s pupils will have been familiar with Virgil’s Aeneid, its hero Aeneas, and his passion for – and betrayal of – the Carthaginian Queen Dido. Tate added some touches of his own: Dido’s beloved companion Belinda, and of course (a particular preoccupation in the late 17th century) a trio of witches. And then Purcell made them live. The result is a music drama that’s bigger than the sum of its parts: a chamber-scaled masterpiece that deals with inspiration, and emotions, of an intensity and power that has been equalled by later operas, but which has never been surpassed.
Bjarte Eike
Baroque violinist Bjarte Eike pushes boundaries in classical music, constantly looking for new projects in the borderland of genres and is reaching out to new audiences with his infectious playing and style.
As the artistic director of Barokksolistene, he has created new and innovative concepts such as “The Alehouse Sessions”; exploring 17th century music from the pubs and alehouses in England, “The Early Joke”; a musical travel through music history, exploring different aspects on humour and music and “The Image of Melancholy”; dealing with the sad songs and emotions through renaissance, folk and experimental music.
As a freelance violinist he explores alternative ways of approaching classical music. Although rooted in Historically Informed Performance practice he strives to include other artistic aspects in his performances, using visual arts, dance, storytelling and improvisation. Major collaborations include Handel’s Alcina at the Norwegian National Opera, Vespertine with choreographer Liam Scarlett, a staged Messiah with Netia Jones for Bergen National Opera at the Bergen International Festival and recordings and concerts with jazz pianist Jon Balke, including as part of the Siwan project which explores the links between North African Arabic, Andalusian and baroque music.
This broad, unifying approach to music, as well as a desire to curate exhilarating new experiences for audiences has led to him being invited to be Artist-in-Residence at festivals for early music, classical music, folk music, experimental music and jazz and as a conductor he is increasingly in demand for play-direct engagements with major symphony orchestras.
Eike received his training from the Grieg Academy in Bergen, Norway and with Richard Gwilt in London, and has been Artist in residence at festivals for early music, classical music, folk music, experimental music and jazz. He has participated in a large number of recordings and is currently teaching baroque violin at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo and as a guest-teacher at the Royal Danish Music Conservatory in Copenhagen.
Katie Bray
Winner of the Dame Joan Sutherland Audience Prize at Cardiff Singer of the World, British mezzo-soprano Katie Bray has become known for her magnetic stage presence and gleaming, expressive tone.
“Katie Bray’s Rosina, who sets off sparks at the top and bottom of her voice and plays the role as a deliciously skittish “live wire”, a classic screen goddess” Richard Fairman, Financial Times.
In the opera house her roles have included Hansel Hansel and Gretel, Rosina Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Varvara Katya Kabanova, Nancy Albert Herring, Zerlina Don Giovanni, Juno Semele, Zenobia Radamisto, Minerva Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, Zaida Il turco in Italia, Isolier Le Comte Ory and Vivaldi’s Griselda (title role) for companies including English National Opera, Irish National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, Garsington Opera, Grange Park Opera and Opera Holland Park. Her interest in the music of Weill and cabaret has led to staged productions of this music, including Effigies of Wickedness, based on songs banned by the Nazis, at the Gate Theatre Notting Hill. Her debut Weill album will be recorded with Chandos Records in early 2025.
On the concert platform she has appeared with orchestras including London Philharmonic Orchestra, The Hallé, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Aalborg Symphony, Britten Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Orchestre de Chambre de Paris in repertoire ranging from Messiah and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to Verdi Requiem, Elijah and The Dream of Gerontius, as well as mixed programmes of classical and baroque arias. She recently gave the premiere of Spell Book by Freya Waley-Cohen with the Manchester Collective and performed Haydn’s Seven Last Words with RIAS Kammerchor at Konzerhaus Berlin.
Noted for her interpretations of baroque repertoire she has received regular invitations from early music groups including Academy of Ancient Music, Irish Baroque Orchestra, The English Concert, Barokksolistene, Monteverdi Choir, Wroclaw Baroque, La Nuova Musica and Spira Mirabilis with conductors including Harry Bicket, Laurence Cummings, Bjarte Eike, Peter Whelan and John Eliot Gardiner.
A keen recitalist she has performed Schumann and Schubert with Sholto Kynoch for Oxford International Song Festival, Britten, Berlioz and Barber with Michael Pandya at Glenarm Festival, music by Pauline Viadot in Dorset, Kurt Weill in Deal and a semi-staged Italienisches Liederbuch by Hugo Wolf with Christopher Glynn and Roderick Williams at Milton Court Concert Hall and Ryedale Festival.
Highlights this 25/26 season include singing Rosmira Partenope at English National Opera under Christian Curnyn, Medoro Orlando at Longborough Festival Opera under Christopher Moulds, Bach’s B Minor Mass with Irish Baroque Orchestra under Peter Whelan, a Messiah tour to Tenerife and Madrid with The Sixteen, Dido Dido and Aeneas with Royal Northern Sinfonia directed by Bjarte Eike and also performing St Marcus Passion with the Arctic Philharmonic.
Katie Bray graduated as a Karaviotis Scholar from the opera course at the Royal Academy of Music, was awarded the Principal’s Prize and won First Prize in the Richard Lewis Singing Competition.
Rowan Pierce
Saltburn-by-the-sea soprano Rowan Pierce was awarded the President’s Award by HRH Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, at the Royal College of Music in 2017. She won both the Song Prize and First Prize at the inaugural Grange Festival International Singing Competition in 2017, the first Schubert Society Singer Prize in 2014 and the Van Someren Godfery Prize at the RCM.
She was a Britten Pears young artist, Samling artist, a Rising Star of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and a Harewood Artist at English National Opera.
Rowan made her BBC Proms debut at the Royal Albert Hall in 2017 with the OAE and returned in 2019 for Handel’s Jephtha and 2023 for Mendelssohn’s Elijah, both with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. She made her Wigmore Hall debut in 2017 with the London Handel Players and has subsequently appeared there with many other chamber ensembles in both early and late repertoire.
Rowan performs on concert platforms worldwide, appearing regularly with ensembles including the Academy of Ancient Music, Dunedin Consort, Early Opera Company, Les Arts Florissants, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Gabrieli Consort, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Royal Northern Sinfonia.
Other highlights include performances with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Les Violons du Roy, Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Freiburg Baroque, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, BBC NOW and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Visits to the US in 2019 included appearances with the OAE at the Lincoln Center in New York, with the Academy of Ancient Music in San Francisco and at the Disney Hall in Los Angeles. She also gave a recital at the Kennedy Center, Washington with Richard Egarr and William Carter in January 2020 and toured in New York with Philharmonia Baroque, singing music by Henry Purcell in 2021 at Caramoor Festival and the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park.
Jonathan McGovern
A series of outstanding debuts have established British baritone Jonathan McGovern as “one of the most beautiful baritone voices around today” (Music OMH). His burnished tone and committed stage presence have delighted audiences and critics alike, and has the 22/23 season he takes up a position at Stadttheater Bern where his roles will include Oreste in Silvia Paoli’s new production of Iphigénie en Tauride, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Robert in Iolanta and roles in L’enfant et les sortilèges in David Bösch’s new production under Nicholas Carter, and Leuthold in Amélie Niermeyer’s new production of Guillaume Tell.
An established UK talent, recent highlights have included role debuts as Apollo in Handel’s Apollo e Dafne for The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Eugene Onegin, Don Giovanni and Papageno for Garsington Opera, Andrei in David Pountney’s new staging of War and Peace and Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro for Welsh National Opera, Pish Tush in The Mikado for English National Opera, and Demetrius in Dominic Hill’s critically acclaimed new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Scottish Opera. On the concert platform he has debuted as the Wigmaker in Ariadne auf Naxos for the Edinburgh International Festival under Lothar Koenigs as well as singing Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas for the Early Opera Company under Christian Curnyn, and Apollo in Apollo e Dafne for The English Concert led by Harry Bicket at the Wigmore Hall where his “tender artistry” (The Telegraph) was praised.
Internationally, highlights have included his debut as Papageno in Jette Steckel’s new production of Die Zauberflöte for Staatsoper Hamburg under Jean-Christophe Spinosi, Pelléas in Barrie Kosky’s new production of Pelléas et Mélisande for Komische Oper Berlin under Jordan de Souza, Don Giovanni at the Théatre des Champs-Élysées under Giovanni Antonini, Calixto Bieito’s new production of Johannes Passion and Barbora Horáková’s new production of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo both for Teatro Arriaga Bilbao. In concert he has sung Dido and Aeneas at the Concertgebouw under Christian Curnyn, Fauré’s Requiem with the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège conducted by Hervé Niquet, Junior in Bernstein’s A Quiet Place with Ensemble Modern under Kent Nagano in Berlin, Dortmund and Dresden, Carmina Burana at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, and Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Das Lied von der Erde with the Natalia Ensemble in Madrid.
Lea Shaw
Lea Shaw is an award-winning Black/BIPOC Mezzo-soprano from Colorado. She now lives and works in Scotland as an Emerging Artist for Scottish Opera. An alumnus of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, she received her BMus with Distinction of the First Class, a Masters of Music, and a Masters of Opera from the Alexander Gibson Opera School, with the guidance of Helen Lawson, Susan Bullock, and Rachel Nicholls.
An accomplished soloist in opera, concert and improvisation, she has performed both locally and worldwide with repertoire spanning from Handel and Bach’s oratorios and operas and the works of Mozart, Rossini, Purcell, Strauss, and Humperdinck, to the works of Britten, Korngold, Bernstein, Vaughan Williams, Ravel, Turnage, Eastman, and Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and Maxwell Davies’ The Medium. She has worked with Marin Alsop, Martyn Brabbins, John Butt, Sir Andrew Davies, Sir Thomas Allen, and Dame Janet Baker, and has created works with Stuart Macrae and James Macmillan in close collaboration.
Throughout her time at the Alexander Gibson Opera School she performed the roles of Second Witch (Dido and Aneas), Bianca (The Rape of Lucretia), Polly Peachum (Die Dreigroschenoper), Mère Jéanne (Les Dialogues des Carmélites), and prepared the roles of Sesto (Giulio Cesare in Egitto), Minskwoman (Flight) and L’Enfant (L’Enfant et les Sortilèges). As a chorus member, Lea’s repertoire includes Sir John In Love, The Rake’s Progress (Edinburgh International Festival), Hansel and Gretel (St. Magnus International Festival) Die Fledermaus, Street Scene, Dido and Aneas, The Fiery Angel (Scottish Opera), Elektra, Salome, and Götterdämmerung (EIF). In scenes, her roles include Fidalma (Il Marito Segredo) Third Maiden (Elektra), Dorabella (Cosi fan Tutti) Idiamante (Idomeneo), Olga (Eugene Onegin) Tisbe (La Cenerentola) Madame Popova (The Bear), Isabella (L’Italiana in Algeri), and Dorothée (Cendrillon). She has covered the roles of Emma Jones (Street Scene) and Dido (Dido and Aneas). As one Scottish Opera’s Emerging Artists 2021-23, , she travelled Scotland with their Opera Highlights tour (Autumn 2021), and appeared on the main stage as Hermia (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) The Neighbour (Mavra), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Paquette ( Candide), Niña (Ainadamar), Suor Zelatrice (Suor Angelica), and Mercedes (Carmen). She is Scottish Opera’s Associate Artist 2023-24.
Lea has appeared as a masterclass participant under Thomas Quastoff, Dame Janet Baker, Roger Vignoles, Nicky Spence, Susan Bullock, and Giselle Allan, and as soloist in Serenade To Music (Vaughan Williams) at the 2017 Leeds Lieder Festival. She has also performed works by Graham Haire at the 2017 ANIMUSIC Congress in Porto, Portugal. She is a recurring soloist in concert and oratorio, both in classical and baroque and in more contemporary works, having performed as soloist in the English premier of Erwin Schulloff’s lost oratorio of the Communist Manifesto with the University of Glasgow in April 2018, soloist in Duke Ellington’s Sacred Service as part of the 2017 West End Festival, the Chichester Psalms (EIF), and as featured soloist in Handel’s Messiah, the Bach Magnificat, and Haydn’s Nelson Mass across the UK. She has also performed as a soloist in recurring relationships with the Red Note Ensemble, the Ye Cronies Opera Society, the St. Magnus Festival, the Westbourne Music Series, Amnesty International, and has performed concerts with the Head of Opera, as well as the Principal, of the RCS. She has performed for the Royal Family.
Lea’s awards include the Jean Highgate Competition (highly Commended, 2014), the Kathleen Ferrier Bursary Competition (representing RCS), the Governor’s Recital Prize for Chamber music (winner, 2017), the Leonie Kayser Prize for Singing (winner, 2017), the Norma Grieg French Song Prize and Ramsay Calder Debussy Prize (winner 2017), the Hugh S. Robertson Prize for Scots Song (second place, 2018), the Ye Cronies Opera Competition (Highly commended, 2020) and the Clonter Opera prize (commended, 2021). In 2023, Lea was the overall winner of the inaugural Northern Alborough Festival New Voices Competition, receiving both the Seastock Trust First Prize and the Audience Prize. She received the 2014 Winnie Busfield Prize for Singing, the 2018 Musicians Company Silver Medal, support from the Sybil Tutton Opera Award, the Maurice Taylor Opera Scholarship, and is a Dewar Arts Awardee.
A sought-after contemporary musician and collaborative artist/storyteller, she is passionate about the ways in which music can instigate social change and start conversations about the problems we face in contemporary life. She collaborates regularly with living composers and artists to create new works and installations on these subjects. She creates immersive performance experiences that highlight the universal communicative nature of the human voice and draw light to the lesser spoken about aspects of living in the Anthropocene. Taking up the mantle of a role model for future generations of young Black and BIPOC musicians, she strives to make contemporary music and opera accessible to all.
Tim Burke
Tim Burke is a conductor and composer based in Newcastle upon Tyne. He read Music at Exeter College, Oxford, before training as a repetiteur at Guildhall School of Music and Drama and winning the Sir Henry Richardson Scholarship to study at the National Opera Studio.
He went on to join the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 2006, working as a repetiteur for Sir Colin Davis and Sir Charles Mackerras amongst others, and from 2008 until 2013 was Chorus Master at Opera North, where he worked with conductors including Richard Farnes, David Parry and Stuart Stratford.
Tim is a passionate believer in the importance of new writing and has since 2013 been the Music Director for pioneering opera company Tête à Tête – with Tête à Tête Tim has premièred many new commissions including Kerry Andrew’s Dart’s Love, winner of the Stage Works category of the British Composer Awards 2014.
He has conducted regularly for Royal Northern Sinfonia, including their RNS Minimal with Mahan Esfahani at Wylam Brewery, Tell Me The Truth About Love with Streetwise Opera, Walton’s Façade, and the Sage Gateshead Christmas Cracker featuring Sam Fender.
He was appointed Chorus Director for the Chorus of Royal Northern Sinfonia in May 2020, with whom he went on to win the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Series and Events Award 2021 for the digital project The World How Wide. He is also Choir Director for St Gabriel’s Church, Heaton.
Conducting credits include Les enfants terribles for the Royal Ballet at the Barbican Hall, Will Tuckett’s The Wind in the Willows and The Lost Thing for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, La Fanciulla del West for Opera Holland Park, Le nozze di Figaro for Scottish Opera, Le nozze di Figaro and Tosca for Welsh National Opera, Rimsky Korskakov’s Christmas Eve for Chelsea Opera Group, The Barber of Seville for Opera North, Patience for English Touring Opera, People Watch and Tell Me The Truth About Love for Streetwise Opera, Pierrot Lunaire for Manchester Collective, The Emperor of Atlantis for Bold Tendencies, La traviata and Il Barbiere di Siviglia for Lyric Opera, Dublin, and The Flying Dutchman for OperaUpClose and Manchester Camerata.
Chorus of Royal Northern Sinfonia
Chorus of Royal Northern Sinfonia is a vital part of the Royal Northern Sinfonia musical family, based at The Glasshouse International Centre for Music in Gateshead. They shine in the great choral masterpieces by George Frideric Handel, Franz Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, excel with contemporary classical music by today’s brightest composers, and bring film scores to life at screenings of Hollywood blockbusters such as Home Alone, Hocus Pocus and Star Wars.
In 2023, they celebrated their 50th anniversary with Mozart’s Requiem and five contemporary pieces from the last five years, Robert Schumann’s rarely-performed oratorio Die Paradise und die Peri and Anton Bruckner’s Mass No. 3 as part of The Glasshouse’s Big Bruckner Weekend. In the 2024/25 season they’ve sung Handel’s Messiah, Gioachino Rossini’s Stabat Mater, and Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time with hundreds of musicians from across the North East in The Glasshouse’s latest Share the Stage performance.
As well as traditional classical music, the Chorus also enjoy new contemporary music, giving the world premiere of All My Ships Are White by Sarah Lianne Lewis in July 2022, commissioning A blue and tender flower by Kerensa Briggs to mark our 50th anniversary in October 2023 and including Eleanor Cully-Boehringer’s Snow on Snow in festive concert tour A Choral Nativity.
Beyond the concert hall, the Chorus regularly perform on their own across the North East and Cumbria – popping up in parks, churches and community venues on their summer tours and spreading festive joy at Christmas. They often collaborate with other choirs in the region, including Gateshead Care Home Choir, Durham University Choral Society, Voices of the River’s Edge and now Huddersfield Choral Society for BBC Proms at The Glasshouse.
Founded in 1973 by Royal Northern Sinfonia’s timpanist Alan Fearon, the Chorus currently has over 90 members and has built a brilliant reputation for musical excellence over its 50-year history. The future is bright, with exciting opportunities growing every year, and new members are welcome at any time.
Royal Northern Sinfonia
Internationally renowned, calling Gateshead home.
37 musicians at the top of their game. Electrifying music, old and new. All the talent, determination, and creativity of the North East on a worldwide stage. From their home at The Glasshouse International Centre for Music, Royal Northern Sinfonia share the joy and wonder of orchestral music with thousands of people across the North of England – and beyond – every year.
From symphonies to string quartets, film soundtracks to choral masses, and original performances with awesome artists from Sheku Kanneh-Mason to Self Esteem, the orchestra’s members have got one of the most varied jobs there is. They’re always looking for fresh new sounds from up-and-coming composers, inviting local communities to share a stage, and doing everything they can to inspire and prepare the musicians of tomorrow to one day take their place.
They’re also working hard to smash the barriers that can stop brilliant people getting into classical music. They’ve teamed up with national partners to support women conductors to develop their careers, to help global majority musicians get vital experience in the orchestra world, and to celebrate disabled and non-disabled musicians breaking new ground together in inclusive ensemble RNS Moves. And they bring new musical opportunities to the region, headlining the first-ever BBC Proms weekend outside London.
Because they whole-heartedly believe orchestral music is for anyone – big cities and rural villages, tiny babies and life-long listeners, die-hard fans and curious minds – they travel far and wide to make sure there’s top-notch classical music on offer for anyone ready to say, “I’ll give that a go”. You’ll find them in churches, castles, and community venues across the North, as well as leading the charge in Carlisle, Kendal, Middlesbrough, and Sunderland.
With 65 years of success to build on, they’ve signed a dynamic artistic leadership – Music Director Dinis Sousa, Artistic Partner Maria Włoszczowska, Principal Guest Conductor Nil Venditti and Associate Conductor Ellie Slorach – to lead the way into a bold, bright future. Wherever the orchestra play and whoever they share a stage with, every performance is a chance to see, hear and feel the music.
