Dido and Aeneas

Concert performance of an opera in three acts with music by Henry Purcell and libretto by Nahum Tate

Ann Murray DBE Dido
Benjamin Appl Aeneas
William Wallace Sailor

David Bates Director
Zack Winokur Choreographer

Ann Murray, one of the great singers of her generation, brings her magisterial artistry to the role of Dido. She is joined by Benjamin Appl, who is fast establishing a major career, William Wallace, current winner of the London Handel Singing Competition; and La Nuova Musica, noted for its rigorous yet sparkling approach to the Baroque repertory embellished here by Zack Winokur's evocative dancers.

One of the first operas in English, Dido and Aeneas is a tale of love and loss, as Dido, Queen of Carthage, is abandoned by the Trojan prince Aeneas and dies overwhelmed by grief. Purcell conjures an intimate human drama from Virgil’s epic Aenied, with Dido’s searing lament, ‘When I am laid in earth’, as its emotional and dramatic climax.