Henry Purcell : Dido & Aeneas

Following the fall of Troy, Æneas flees to Carthage where the beautiful Dido reigns. They fall in love. A sorceress who is hostile towards the queen incites Æneas to fulfil his destiny and leave her. Torn between love and duty, he decides to stay, but Dido, grieved by his hesitation, chases him away. As soon as he departs, she commits suicide in a poignant adieu.

HEARTBREAKING GOODBYES

An iconic and ingenious work by Henry Purcell, Dido and Æneas features among the masterpieces of baroque opera. Written for a small cast and a duration of little more than one hour, it was premiered in 1689 by young girls at a boarding school in Chelsea. The composer’s only great opera, it contains echoes of Italian opera through its arias, of French opera through its dances and of English semi-opera, also called Mask, through its spoken parts. It constitutes a true synthesis of the composer’s art.

The strongest human passions unfold there: from love to despair via fear, treachery and anger. In the opera’s tragic trajectory, Purcell explores the complex evolution of human psychology confronted with torments and heartbreaks. Thus, the frightening sorceress, convoking the fantastic at the heart of the drama, appears as the negative manifestation of Dido... a very Shakespearean multiplicity of spirit! The culminating point of the work, the final Dido’s Lament, the devastating When I am laid in Earth, places itself, with its persistent bassline and its song clothed in devastating grief, among the ranks of the repertoire’s best-known melodies.

The conductor of Les Agrémens and the Chœur de Chambre of Namur, Guy Van Waas will bring his talent and his authenticity to this magnificent musical score. And in order to stage this gem, we rediscover the dreamlike world of Cécile Roussat and Julien Lubek who have already put their name, on our stage, to La Cenerentola by Rossini (2014) and La Flûte enchantée by Mozart (2015).

CONDUCTOR : Guy van Waas
DIRECTOR : Cécile Roussat, Julien Lubek
CHOIRMASTER : Thibaut Lenaerts
ARTIST :
Roberta Invernizzi, Benoit Arnould, Katherine Crompton, Carlo Allemano, Jenny Daviet, Caroline Meng, Benedetta Mazzucato