It’s 400 years since the barristers of the Inner and Middle Temple won their land and autonomy from James I with a royal charter, and they want us to know about it. Hence a year-long jamboree of concerts, lectures and, now, a fully-staged opera in the 16th-century hall that they now use for dinner.

This staging, by David Edwards, was certainly alive to the atmospheric hall’s decor. Surrounded by the long-rusted armour of past Templars (one presumes), the main protagonists of Purcell’s opera were represented by beautifully detailed (and wonderfully macabre) figurines in gaudy helmets, while the singers themselves were in sombre Japanese Noh-style garb. The effect was often more elaborate ritual than opera, particularly when our Dido or Aeneas paused for a hieratic gesture and gazed resolutely into the middle distance; the chorus, meanwhile, offered us frieze-like poses and a forest of impassive gazes.

It’s true that Purcell’s masterpiece offers no easy solution to its unique blend of meditation and narrative, dance and drama. But offering Dido and Aeneas as pure rite robbed us of the emotional intimacy that this most intimate of venues could have afforded. It also seemed to sap our two protagonists, Louise Winter’s Dido and Andrew Rupp’s bland Aeneas, of some presence and impact; Winter in particular should have worked much harder to get her words across.

Plenty of plaudits, though, to Elin Manahan Thomas’s crystal clear Belinda, Robin Blaze’s spiteful but never hammy Sorceress (his grisly skeleton alter ego helped), Simon Wall’s Sailor and a chorus who made up for their pilates routines with some richly resonant singing. The small band, too, played with spirit and lustre for James Vivian – though, not for the first time, I longed for Purcell’s earthy harmonies and lusty rhythms to sound just a little less dainty.

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