WATCH Dido's Lament from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's in an homage to Coldplay's The Scientist
Soprano Helen Charlston learned to sing Dido's Lament backwards for the film shoot
Last updated 18th Feb 2021
The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment will premiere a new video featuring soprano Helen Charlston singing the haunting Dido's Lament, but with a twist.
The video - an homage to Coldplay's The Scientist - features mezzo-soprano Helen moving backwards whilst she seemingly sings the words to Purcell's classic aria from Dido and Aeneas.
The video premieres on this page at 10am on Friday 19 February. You can hear the track played exclusively on Simon Mayo's Friday morning show from 10am.
"I didn't need to learn the whole thing backwards," explained Helen in an exclusive interview for the Scala Radio website. "We picked specific moments where my mouth would be shown. It was those bits I would need to learn to mouth backwards so that when it was reversed, it would look like I was speaking the words forwards.
"I spent a lot of time sitting in my living room with a video app, trying to do it and turning it back and forward to see if it worked. It just took a bit of time and practice. Eventually I worked out what I needed to say phonetically, in order for it to be backwards. It took a lot of brainpower."
Watch Helen Charlston sing Dido's Lament in the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's in pop video homage to Coldplay's 'The Scientist'
Listen to the first play of the track on Simon Mayo's show from 10am on Friday 19 February. Watch the premiere of the video from 10am on YouTube.