Sasha Walz - John Percival

“Dido and Aeneas”
Sasha Waltz and Guests
Sadler's Wells Theatre
London, UK
March 6 – 10, 2007

by John Percival
copyright ©2007, John Percival

Right from its creation in 1689, Purcell's opera “Dido and Aeneas” has been linked to dance: the choreographer Josias Priest was director of the School for Young Gentlewomen in Chelsea, London, where it was premiered. Among modern revivals, one for the Schwetzingen Festival in 1966 appears to have been outstanding, with Irmgard Seefried as Dido and choreography by Kurt Jooss under the title “Epilog” with his own libretto. More recently, the opera's tricentenary in 1989 provided Mark Morris with one of his most successful productions and two of his best roles (playing both Dido and the Sorceress). All the roles, you may recall, were performed on stage by dancers, with the singers confined to the orchestra pit.

Now Sasha Waltz has done her version, premiered in February 2005 at the Staatsoper unter den Linden, Berlin, revived there – always to sold-out houses – and toured internationally, arriving in London for a week at Sadler's Wells. It is performed by her own dance company, known as Sasha Waltz and Guests, with the chamber orchestra Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin and the Vocalconsort Berlin which specialises in early baroque music. Musical direction is by Attilio Cremonesi, who conducts with manifest joy and is also credited with reconstructing the score.

Waltz has all roles played on stage by a singer and a dancer, or actually two dancers apiece for both Dido and the Sorceress. There is also a dancer only as the Narrator. This makes at times for a crowded stage, especially given that Waltz makes the singers dance too. Yet the total effect is bold and clear. Stage design jointly by Waltz with Thomas Schenk allows some striking appearances from high openings and from below the floor; two dancers have long flights lifted on wires, and there's a striking dance for a child as Eros. The greatest novelty is providing a prologue with a great raised, glass-sided pool of water stretched right across the stage, and having dancers dive into this and swim (often submerged for almost frightening periods). This is done to the long overture: the librettist, Nahum Tate, wrote text for a prologue but either Purcell never set it or the music was lost. Waltz explains that “The aquarium I think of as Troy — the departure from Troy”. Well, I doubt that Aeneas swam across the Mediterranean, but never mind: it makes a striking start.

Waltz's other addition is what she calls the insert section in the middle, “when there's no music and the performers play with clothes and speak a little”, describing it as “a reflection of courtliness, of the use and teaching of manners, of the fact that 'Dido' was first performed ... at an academy for girls!” Hmm: I'll bet those girls never saw at school the nudity that sometimes occurs in this staging.

The production was chosen by Sadler's Wells partly to appeal to both opera and dance fans. I got the impression that the packed first night audience was mainly inclined to opera, but the reviewers were mostly from dance — and didn't like it. Well, there was some muddle, and the invention wasn't uniformly successful, but I found the total effect intriguing and enjoyable.

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