Opera "Dido and Aeneas": content, video, interesting facts

G. Purcell Opera Dido and Aeneas: The Myth of Great Love

The plot of the opera is based on a love story of mythical characters - the Trojan hero Aeneas and the Queen of Carthage Dido. Many creators of world art, including Homer, Virgil, Dante, addressed this topic in an effort to perpetuate it in their creation, but only Henry Purcell was able to do it in full. His opera "Dido and Aeneas" is considered the best work in the English musical culture of the late XVII - XVIII centuries.

Summary

The performance of the play begins immediately in Dido’s palace - she is worried about the sudden outbreak of love for Aeneas. However, there is no reason to worry, her love is mutual: the Trojan hero confesses to the queen of her feelings and offers to tie their fates into marriage. But evil forces are against this union. The witch sends an evil spirit to the enamored Aeneas in the form of the god Mercury, so that he expresses to him the "will of the gods" - by all means, he must leave Didon forever and sail away from Carthage to fulfill the mission intended by heaven.

Aeneas can not contradict the will above and is about to go. Dido does not see life without a lover and decides to die. Before throwing herself into the fire, she asks the cupids to shower her grave with petals of fragrant roses, velvety, delicate, but gradually dying - just like her loving heart. This is what she sings about in her famous aria "When I Am Laid in the Ground" ("When I am laid in Earth"), called "Crying Didons".

A photo:

Popular arias

Dido's aria "Ah, Belinda"

Aria Dido "Thy hand Belinda - When I am laid in earth"

Interesting Facts

• The opera Dido and Aeneas was composed for a women's boarding school. This explains the "simplicity" of the score of the composition - after all, schoolgirls should be able to perform it. By the way, the original score of the work was not preserved, and some fragments of the opera were irretrievably lost.
• The history of the Trojan hero Aeneas today is known in several ways. According to one version, he saved a lot of people from burning Troy and sailed with them into the open sea, after some time moored to the shores of northern Africa. The second version tells that Aeneas left Troy before it was taken, and the third one accuses the hero of surrendering his native city to enemies and the subsequent flight.
• The will of the gods, which Aeneas was to fulfill — the foundation of the city of the Latins. The hero and his descendants successfully accomplished this mission - they built many cities in Italy. After the death of Aeneas, the Italians deified him and began to be considered the god-founder of the Roman people. So the tragic love story of Dido and Aeneas played a role: the myth was to be held for the sake of creating a world power and the center of Catholicism - Rome.
• But the Spaniards consider Queen Dido as their founder. This is what Alfonso X writes about this in his chronicle of 1282, The History of Spain.
• The love story of the heroes is perceived by scientists as an encrypted code of subsequent wars between Rome and Carthage - the so-called Punic Wars. After many years of conflict, the Roman army would destroy the Phoenician city, despite the truce.

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