In this first period-instrument recording of Dido, Andrew Parrott tries to re-create the first known performance of the work--at Josiah Priest's School for Young Gentlewomen in London. Here (as there) the cast includes only one male--David Thomas, whose brawny Aeneas could overwhelm Dido physically as well as emotionally. Judith Nelson is a warm, sweet-toned Belinda; the Sorceress gets a vivid, raucous, love-it-or-hate-it performance by the legendary medieval-cum-folk-singer Jantina Noorman. Emma Kirkby, early in her career, sounds eloquent but extremely youthful as Dido--barely past her teens. This makes for a different, perhaps more credible, tragedy: a new, slightly immature queen, servant rather than mistress of her emotions, angrily refuses to take back the lover who abandoned her--only to die heartbroken after banishing him. --Matthew Westphal
