Dido and Æneas

The first great masterpiece of English opera is set in a girls’ boarding school in London in the 1680s. Purcell reworks, in a highly personal manner, the experiences of Venetian and French opera, achieving an entirely new result. Nahum Tate’s libretto reinterprets Virgil, combining the story of the love between Æneas, fleeing from Troy, and Dido, Queen of Carthage, with the grotesque interventions of witches. When Æneas abandons her to fulfil his mission, Dido takes her own life, addressing to her sister Belinda a farewell that remains among the most moving pages in the history of musical theatre. The difficult task of rendering the complex forms of English Baroque theatre in contemporary terms is often entrusted to artists capable of combining choreographic and directorial talent: in this case Marcos Morau, who thus makes his debut at the Piermarini. Conducting is Gianluca Capuano, who is exceptionally at ease in the ever-changing forms of pre-classical musical theatre. Emily D’Angelo sings the role of Dido, Alessio Arduini appears as Æneas, and Carlo Vistoli performs the Witch.