All three women are listed as mezzo-sopranos (Cassandra and Dido are sometimes sung by one singer), but the vocal contrasts here added immeasurably to the drama.
Beth Taylor’s Anna, exuberant and heartfelt, wrenching off her high heels, was the perfect foil for her “sister” Dido, queen of Carthage, performed by Murrihy with controlled dignity. If she has sounded more convincing in a role, I can’t recall which. Alice Coote, commanding the stage with fervour, both vocal and physical, mesmerised and enthralled. Part one is dominated by Cassandra, the truth-teller who prompts the Trojan women to kill themselves. The dancing energy of the players unleashed the music’s knots and snarls, letting all fly wild Playing period instruments and enhanced by ophicleide and an army of offstage saxhorns, the orchestra sounded transparent and lithe, Berlioz’s sonic originality bursting forth. Performers made use of stairs, galleries, side entrances (movement director Tess Gibbs, lighting Rick Fisher). The five-act work found ideal realisation in the Albert Hall. Now back in the repertoire but always a monumental undertaking, it retains the feel of a novelty. A summation of his maverick creative ingenuity, it gathered dust for most of a century.
Spellcaster university full#
This dazzling and lopsided opera, recounting the fall of Troy and the fateful love of Dido and Aeneas – Berlioz’s own libretto draws on Virgil’s Aeneid – was not performed in full in the composer’s lifetime. His younger associate, Portuguese-born Dinis Sousa, already a considerable conductor in his own right, leapt into the breach with grace and intensity, directing the Monteverdi Choir, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and soloists, led by Alice Coote, Paula Murrihy and Michael Spyres, in a spellbinding, well-paced performance. The conductor John Eliot Gardiner, who dreamed up the project, trained the musicians and no doubt contributed to the semi-staging, was absent: he has withdrawn from all remaining concerts in 2023 after allegedly assaulting one of the soloists. A star cast, near flawless choir and tireless orchestra arrived at the Proms last weekend, from a European tour, to reveal this sprawling work in all its ambition.
Build your university with a mechanism of magic decks.
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Will you make it a high place of black magic, with the best teachers of necromancy and demonology? Or a school in harmony with nature to train druids and shamans? Or why not train adventurous mages, offering them options to learn how to fight and be discreet? But this will require surviving the ruthless attacks of the orc tribes and the controls of the education authorities. Build your school, manage your budget, recruit teachers. In Spellcaster University, you take on the role of the director of a magic university in a heroic fantasy world.
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