Dido & Aeneas
An Electroacoustic Variation on Henry Purcell’s Baroque Drama

Dewey Dell

A city is burning and the shimmering flames are reflected on the surface of the sea lapping against the shore. From where we stand the flares and waves blend together and the sky magnifies the light of the fire.
We collect the ashes and trace the stories of bodies swept up by streams of clouds and fire.
We find a love story carved by the fury of the elements. We recognize the face of the exiled Queen of Carthage and the figure of the Trojan refugee Aeneas.

The direct confrontation with Henry Purcell’s Baroque masterpiece “Dido and Aeneas” – one of the finest and most luminous interpretations of the Latin tragedy - has inspired an electroacoustic recomposition of the entire score; the libretto’s words, which evoke natural phenomena such as storms, clouds, and lava, nourish and sustain the work’s choreography and stagecraft.

The sky and the human body are the same entity.
Every cataclysm holds within itself a serene raw power, and the potential to tear apart, overthrow, and radically transform everything.

Duration: 60 min