Innsbruck Festival of Early Music 2024 Review: Dido, Königin von Carthago

Reviving Baroque Music & Experimental Ambiguity

By: Jennifer Pyron

Christoph Graupner’s “Dido, Königin von Carthago”, with libretto by Heinrich Hinsch, explores the rich landscape of baroque music’s balance of complexities with intuitiveness. “Dido’s” world premiere was in the Hamburg Opera House at Gänsemarkt in 1707, but the musical ideas for this masterpiece began long before.

Graupner, who attended St.Thomas’s School in Leipzig where he studied and thus was impressed with the means to contribute towards the burgeoning pathway of High Baroque, learned how to express his own musical empathy from an early start. During his time at St. Thomas School he was allowed to transcribe music for Johann Kuhnau and began his own journey of compositional exploration, taking his own firsthand account from a master.

Until things went in another direction for Graupner.

While his academic path was leading him towards becoming a great composer himself, Graupner was forced to serve as a soldier in Hamburg and consequently pause his musical aspirations. Luckily, this was only momentarily.

The journey of Graupner’s continuation as a composer might have been obstructed enough to thwart his chances of making anything of himself in this way, however, it could be said that this circumstance inspired him to learn more about what it was that kept bringing him back to that which he loved the most – expressing the human experience through musical ambiguity and inventiveness.

Innsbruck Festival of Early Music’s Production

“Dido” was ahead of its time. Graupner's collaboration with librettist Heinrich Hinsch revealed the value of baroque’s ambiguity, making experimental music of his time push the boundaries of composition beyond that which was expected and available for banal consumption. Graupner’s genius was on the rise. His star was ascending to light the path of baroque’s new dawn, with “Dido” being the perfect vessel.

The opening of the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music’s production by director Deda Cristina Colonna, musical director Andrea Marcon, and stage and costume designer Domenico Franchi, was breathtaking. Juno, performed by soprano Jone Martínez, appeared to be descending from the heavens, radiating gold like the sun as she delivered her message to Dido. Stage and costume designer Domenico Franchi’s intuitive work created a portal for the imagination from the minute the curtains parted and Juno appeared from above. This first impression continued all throughout the opera, manifesting the internal happenings of Dido’s spiraling mind.

Musical director Andrea Macron’s interpretation of Graupner’s score was intelligently thrilling. Macron led musicians from the La Cetra Barockorchester, featuring violinists Eva Saladin (Concertmaster), Christoph Rudolf, Claudio Rado, and Aliza Vicente, second violins German Echeverri Chamorro, Petra Melicharek, Cecilie Valter, and Rahel Maria Wittling, violists Joanna Michalak and Giovanni Simeoni, cellists Alex Jellici and Jonathan Pesek, double bassists Fred Uhlig and Giacomo Albenga, theorbists Maria Ferré and Lorenzo Abate, harpsichordist Andrea Buccarella, oboist and recorder players Georg Fritz and Priska Comploi, bassoonist Letizia Viola, trumpeters Andreas Lackner and Martin Sillaber, timpanist Philip Tarr, and horn players Daniele Bolzonella and Fabio Forgiarini. The ensemble displayed joy as they played and the musical atmosphere webbed a real-life listening fantasy for the audience to delight in with wonder.

The Universe of Her

Graupner’s “Dido” features baroque music emotionally intertwined with Hinsch’s libretto in a way that immediately captivates listeners. The overture especially displays Graupner’s gripping composition in full force, including percussive “wind” sounds generating synesthesia induced listening-visuals.

“Dido’s” overture exemplifies exactly what makes baroque the imaginative interplay of emotional expression that it is. Graupner takes listeners into another realm of listening, and this production’s director, Deda Christina Colonna, thoughtfully honors the true meaning of it all.

In an interview conducted by Christoph Mortiz-Bauer, director Colonna speaks more about her connection to this work. “My passion for historical research and the need to express myself through creative work have fought a long battle to attain supremacy among my interests, but with my so-called ‹ maturity› I have acquired the certainty that, when I work as a stage director, the creative process I am involved in is not oriented towards historical reconstruction per se. The available historical sources for opera staging do not supply objective notation for specific performances but rather allow the construction of a frame of reference within which an original, individual artistic creation occurs for me as stage director. What fascinates me in this process is to look at historical sources so thoroughly, that I will find inspiration on how to express myself in consonance with the works I stage,” says Colonna.

Colonna’s perspective of “Dido” furthers the intent of this production’s efficacy, making it more about the fabric of imaginative impressions and interpreting baroque through impactful stagings and choreography. For example, during the sextet, “Più crudo tiranno,” singers gracefully connected their physical movements with the underlying current of Graupner’s composition. This evolved repetitive phrases as an embodied practice, illuminating “Dido’s” psychological core and Graupner’s impending desire to activate immersive listening responses from the audience.

Overall, Colonna uncovered the sensual side of baroque and made “Dido” pleasurable in every sense. This production was in every way about the universe of her.

Cast Highlights

Soprano Robin Johannsen as Dido was the perfect interpreter of what it means to be Dido, the queen, and a human being. Johannsen’s voice displayed a palette of colors to match her moods and most specifically her spiraling mind. In Act one when Dido wakes up to Juno’s message of impending disaster, Johannsen was already emotionally involved with the plot. Her voice carried raw and instinctual moments of a woman in distress being shown her doomed future about to unfold. This was not in an attempt to reveal all of Dido’s feelings that Johannsen voiced her character so fully, instead it was in direct influence that she decided to lead with what a human in Dido’s scenario would do – responding in desperation at the realization of one’s own mortality.

Johannsen led by vocal example in this way and the entire cast responded in ripple effect, mirroring her mind, body and soul.

Soprano Jone Martínez as Juno was exact in her role as she sang with guttural conviction and minimal physical movements. Every note and gesture she made was empowered by her intention to be the goddess that she is. The audience could not take their eyes off Martínez during her Act one entrance from above. Her gold costume, designed by Domenico Franchi, radiated with regality especially when paired with lighting designer Cesare Agoni’s thoughtful perspective.

Martínez’s soprano was rich and aligned with Graupner’s score. When I closed my eyes while listening to her sing, I felt like I was being transported into the ethereal.

Another impactful moment was during the sextet, “Più crudo tiranno,” when the singers’ voices wove a tapestry of sound and movements that seemed to stop time altogether. The minimal choreography made such an impact in this moment, it felt as though Graupner were present in the hall. There was nothing more than the transformative gift of baroque’s emotional intelligence that one could want. Every singer and part of this production gave its utmost to the masterpiece that is “Dido, Königin von Carthago”.