Remember

The only place in the world I should be right now is bed but some things just will not wait. I want to say this right now or it will never be said the way I mean. 
Remember the added layer of brilliance I talked about in Yvonne's fourth Dido (my second)? Tonight it returned, brighter than ever. Of the four performances I've seen, this, her last, was her greatest. And great is the word. I knew straight away the voice would be strong and beautiful — it's the security in her lower register which tips me off  — but somewhere in the first scene she tapped into something and brought off a Dido not quite like any of the rest. It might just have been what I'd been quietly hoping for: the performance where she would channel whatever spirit it was that makes her performance as Cavalli's Dido one of her very finest recordings. Tonight the fire in her eyes and the blaze of her voice were terrifying and magnificent. She nailed the first scene. She outclassed everyone in the hunt scene with her single phrase. And the end, my God. It was as intense as anything she did in Streetcar or La voix humaine. The look in her eyes as she delivered that final "Away!" to Aeneas could have frozen us all, motionless, for days. 
As for the Lament ... words fail. I sat there, front and centre, as she moved forward, ringed by light and sang ... did she sing it? or speak it? ... It was opera, it was life, it was love, it was death, it was Dido. It was perfection. I'm raving. I'm sorry. It was like that. 
She is always great and always moving and always all those things she should be, but this was, I think, a moment in a million: spontaneous, more than just the result of artistry and talent. It came from somewhere else, we don't know and don't need to know where, and there it was. Whatever Yvonne found in it or in herself or whatever, she shared it with us in a way I can't describe, that way that stops you in your tracks. I was a mess. I'd be a mess again if I kept writing. 
This was the Dido I had in mind when I first knew she'd sing it. And the Dido I had in mind when I just wished she'd sing it. Maybe even the Dido I had in mind when I was seventeen and read the Aeneid and was instantly fascinated by beautiful, strong Elissa, who loved too much and against her will. I will say it once more and then I'll stop. Perfection. Yvonne.