Early Opera Company

Heroic prince meets proud queen, the Gods interfere, tragedy ensues. That is the basic premise of Virgil’s version of Aeneas and Dido. In Nahum Tate's libretto, which Purcell set to music in the 1680s, things are somewhat different. In their Dido and Aeneas, a sinister Sorceress lends fate a helping hand. Spirits easily deceive Trojan prince Aeneas into abandoning Carthaginian queen Dido and going to Italy, where his descendants are destined to found Rome. And Queen Dido herself seems afraid of embracing happiness. All of this tragedy and tension inspired Purcell to compose superlative music, which became an emblem of British culture shortly after his death. The lament When I am Laid in Earth has even become a modern cult classic.

The Early Opera Company and an array of top soloists combine Purcell's masterpiece with Charpentier's one-act opera Actéon. This tragic pastoral tells the same story as that recounted in the Dido and Aeneas aria ‘Oft she visits this lone mountain’. It is based on an episode from Ovid's Metamorphoses.