This performance is wonderful; however, the dating is suspect. The Glyndebourne and BBC websites indicate that this cast performed the work on September 28, 1965, for a special telecast over BBC2. In 1966, the Glyndebourne Festival staged this opera for 13 performances with Baker, Hemsley, and a supporting cast which featured some of the same singers as in the 1965 telecast. Again, info from the Glyndebourne website.

A superb performance from Dame Janet. Somehow, she seems more involved than either of her two studio recording which are both fabulous and involving. If this seems confusing, it won't to those who, like I, venerate Dame Janet. The present performance finds her in stupendous voice. Thomas Hemsley does take some getting used to as he sounds startlingly like Peter Pears. John Pritchard conducts what is obviously a loving performance. The sound is taken from a television video tape, so sometimes that low rumble from video tapes intrudes but does not in any way spoil such a magnificent performance. Purchase this, pour a glass of wine, sit back, enjoy and thank heaven this exists!

In this 1966 live recording, the pleasant vocal volume/orchestra volume mix allows the subtlety of expression of Janet Baker's vocal dynamics to become evident to the listener. In Janet Baker’s close mic’d 1961 studio recording of this same piece, she at times sounded over enunciatory and annunciatory with accentuation of her vibrato especially in more forceful passages. Dame Janet’s 1975 recording of Dido and Aeneas with S. Bedford is a sensitive interpretation with a surprisingly high tessitura.The first 1:30 of Dido’s Lament is missing in this 1966 recording as it is missing on the youtube video of this performance. (The youtube video credited Charles Mackerras as the conductor of this recording. There’s also a youtube video of Belinda from this Glyndebourne 1966 recording.)

This is a lovely, lively performance of Dido and Aeneas, splendidly performed. Janet Baker is tremendous in the title role, every inch the queen, fully knowing how to carry herself and break our hearts without overplaying anything. Her final aria is very heartfelt. Hemsley's voice isn't always as steady as one might like, but his diction is excellent and he plays the tragic hero without "playing the tragic hero". A very young Yvonne Minton contributes a sexy Sorceress and the rest of the cast is excellent. Pritchard gives us a performance with nods towards authentic performance practice, but doesn't hit us over the head with them. The sound is very good. I wonder what was on the rest of the program.As a bonus, Andy gives us Didon's "Je vais mourir" from Les Troyens (in English) sung by Baker. She is terrific in that too (it is available complete from Opera Depot too.)

This is a treasurable "Dido and Aeneas." John Pritchard conducts a robust reading, incisively accented. While it avoids Romanticism, neither is there any Early Musicke pussyfooting. As might be expected, Janet Baker is the Dido of one's dreams, the regality of her diction abetted by the inbuilt melancholy of her timbre. Alas, Thomas Hemsley is a venerable-sounding Aeneas but the role is brief and there are compensations in the heart Sailor of young Ryland Davies and the surprisingly alluring-sounding Sorceress of Yvonne Minton. One can have obtain this as your basic "Dido" and sleep easily. The recorded sound is very 'present' without even a hint of overload. Well done, Opera Depot.