Lutenist Elizabeth Kenny, alongside soprano Nardus Williams and classicist Mary Beard, have intrigued audiences at the sold-out Britten Studio in Snape Maltings and at Cowdray Hall as part of the BBC Proms, with their programme ‘I never laid eyes on Aeneas …’ Women’s Stories from the Ancient World.
The new programme features music by Blow, Purcell, Strozzi, Caccini, Daniel Purcell, and Elizabeth's arrangements of works by Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre and Handel, interspersed with readings from the ancient classical world exploring women's voices in antiquity and their relevance today. The Proms performance also included the world premiere of Rachel Stott's 'So Says Nossis', commissioned by the BBC, with text translated by Mary Beard from about 300BCE.
The Snape performance has received a glowing review in Opera Now:
“Kenny on every word of [Nardus] Williams’s, though a technical master in her own right, maintaining an artistic balance throughout the evening…The mood transformed with Purcell’s ‘Nymphs and Shepherds’ and his brother Daniel Purcell’s ‘When Daphne first her Shepherd Saw’. Masterfully navigated, these faster-paced, more light-hearted pieces suited Williams’s agile voice with the Kenny/Williams synergy at its finest… It’s a new, wide perspective of opera and history's women and one for which [Mary] Beard, Williams and Kenny bring inclusivity, vibrancy, passion and humour.”
- Hattie Butterworth, Opera Now****
You can listen to the recording on BBC Sounds here, available until 8th October 2024.
