{"id":9432,"date":"2026-02-03T15:27:52","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T14:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/?p=9432"},"modified":"2026-02-03T15:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T14:28:08","slug":"dido-decides-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/?p=9432","title":{"rendered":"Dido Decides to Die"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ellen T. Harris, author of a recently reissued monograph of Dido and Aeneas<\/em> and co-author of one of the critical editions of Purcell\u2019s opera, once lamented on the pages of The New York Times <\/em>that the more we learn about this work, the less we know about it. And it\u2019s hard to disagree: the information reiterated for years in textbooks and opera guides according to which Purcell composed Dido <\/em>for the purposes of an elite school for girls run by Josias Priest in Chelsea has been refuted, but no prospects have opened up for any new findings. Thematic and structural similarities between Dido <\/em>and John Blow\u2019s three-act opera with prologue Venus and Adonis <\/em>point to direct inspiration from the work by Purcell\u2019s teacher. We know for sure that Blow wrote that opera to a commission from King Charles II. There is much to suggest that Venus and Adonis <\/em>was premiered in the year 1683, possibly in one of the chambers of the White Tower at Windsor Castle, which the king ordered to be turned into a theatre shortly before this date. We also know that in 1684 Blow\u2019s opera was staged again at Priest\u2019s school. Could it be that Dido <\/em>was also written with Charles\u2019s court in mind, before subsequently appearing on the stage of the school in Chelsea? If so, then the premiere must have occurred before the king\u2019s death in 1685. It has also not been ruled out that Charles II\u2019s premature death could have thwarted the plans of Purcell, who \u2013 nolens volens <\/em>\u2013 left the work on a shelf and only staged it later, at the boarding school for girls in Chelsea. Or perhaps he composed Dido <\/em>for James II? If so, we still don\u2019t know whether he managed to stage it at the court of the last Catholic king of England.<\/p>\n

One puzzle follows another. Some scholars draw attention to the expression \u2018turning times\u2019 in the spoken epilogue from the first edition of the libretto, which they claim refers to the Glorious Revolution, during the last months of 1688, when the English parliament dethroned James II and thereby definitively brought an end to the Stuart dynasty. We are familiar with Purcell\u2019s opera from three much later copies, none of which gives a cohesive picture of the original shape of the score. The oldest among them was dated roughly to the mid-eighteenth century \u2013 until, that is, the recent discovery that the paper used by the copyist only entered production in 1777. The manuscript is lacking not just the prologue, but also several dances and \u2013 most importantly \u2013 the ending of Act II. Dido <\/em>has come down to us in the form in which it was used in an adaptation of Shakespeare\u2019s comedy Measure for Measure <\/em>written in 1699 by Charles Gildon and staged the following year at the Lincoln\u2019s Inn Fields Theatre under the title Beauty the Best Advocate<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Mark\u00e9ta Cukrov\u00e1 (Dido), and Ekaterina Krovateva (on the left) as Belinda. Photo: Serghei Gherciu<\/p>\n

Purcell\u2019s masterpiece \u2013 or rather what remains of it \u2013 was plucked from oblivion in 1895, on the bicentenary of the composer\u2019s death. Since the middle of the last century, Dido <\/em>has enjoyed unwaning popularity: it has been performed on early and modern instruments, paired with other works to keep the audience in the theatre for more than an hour, and supplemented in various ways, largely with music by Purcell himself.<\/p>\n

The creative minds behind the new production of Dido and Aeneas <\/em>at the National Theatre in Prague, on the stage of the Stavovsk\u00e9 divadlo, took the rather peculiar decision to make several cuts to the already depleted score (removing the \u2018Echo Dance\u2019, the beginning of the scene in the grove and the \u2018Witches Dance\u2019), give the parts of the Spirit and the Sailor to the Witches, and bolster the first act, quite substantially, with extracts from The Indian Queen<\/em>, Purcell\u2019s last, unfinished, semi-opera. The sung commentaries of the allegories of Fame and Envy on the doings of the rivals for the heart of the Incan princess Orazia, and also the invocation of the Aztec conjuror Ismeron to the God of Dreams, together with the later response from the deity, were added to the Prague production in the character of a court masque, watched by Dido and Aeneas a moment after the Trojan prince makes an ardent declaration of love to the queen of Carthage.<\/p>\n

In terms of dramaturgy, all of these ideas failed. The lengthy insertion from The Indian Queen<\/em>, although musically interesting, seriously disturbed the proportions and the continuity to the narrative in the first two acts of the opera \u2013 particularly since, after the masque, Dido sang Orazia\u2019s love song to Montezuma, at odds with the work as a whole in terms of both content and poetical language. That is what happens when those responsible for a production \u2013 in this case director Alice Nellis and dramaturge Ond\u0159ej Hu\u010d\u00edn \u2013 focus entirely on their own interpretation of a work while disrespecting the conventions of the original. Nellis decided to turn Dido <\/em>into the tale of a woman scared of falling in love, who allows herself to become possessed by her inner demons and urges the man to leave, descending into ever deeper lethargy and depression. Such a take leaves no room for a drama of duty: it is not the Spirit with the face of Mercury that bids Aeneas sail off to Italy, only the negative thoughts swirling around in Dido\u2019s head, appearing on the stage in the guise of the Witches. Truth be told, there is no Aeneas here, or his companions. The queen\u2019s tragedy would have been played out even without their participation. The brief amorous episode only hastened her death.<\/p>\n

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Aco Bi\u0161\u0107evi\u0107 as the Fame of\u00a0The Indian Queen<\/em>. Photo: Serghei Gherciu<\/p>\n

Nellis\u2019s conception certainly did not facilitate the task of the soloists, among whom only Mark\u00e9ta Cukrov\u00e1, in the titular role, was able to display her truly impressive experience in the domain of Baroque singing. Unfortunately, her once luminous mezzo-soprano has lost not just its sparkle, but also precise intonation; problems have also arisen with her control of vibrato. Yet she gave an interpretation that was quite immaculate in terms of style, so perhaps that evening she was simply off-colour. I was disappointed by Luk\u00e1\u0161 Ba\u0159\u00e1k in the role of Aeneas, a singer endowed with a fine, but rather inflexible baritone voice, gravitating towards the bass, wholly unsuited to this baritenore part. Ekaterina Krovateva came across quite well, and her robust coloratura soprano would match the emotional figure of Belinda even better if the singer were better able to master its expansive volume. A very good impression was made by the two soprano Witches, Lenka Pavlovi\u010d and Marie \u0160im\u016fnkov\u00e1, and I cannot fault Magdal\u00e9na Hebousse in the part of the Second Woman. I find it more difficult to accept the performance by the Slovenian tenor Aco Bi\u0161\u0107evi\u0107 in the dual role of the Sorceress and the allegory of Fame \u2013 in both cases smacking of caricature, which inclines one to suspect that this singer has problems with his vocal technique. The other performers of the \u2018masque\u2019 in Act I \u2013 bass Tom\u00e1\u0161 \u0160elc (Envy, Ismeron) and the aforementioned Krovateva as the God of Dreams \u2013 performed far better, not for a moment transgressing the bounds of good taste.<\/p>\n

Separate doubts were aroused by the overall musical concept of the show, and more precisely by the decision to piece together an instrumental ensemble from members of the local orchestra and musicians from Collegium 1704. The practice of combining early and modern instruments is nothing new in performances of Baroque operas, but this time the sound proved too much of a \u2018hybrid\u2019, with the conductor perhaps partly to blame. Michael Hofstetter directed the music in an accomplished and assured manner, but at times the tempi were too brisk and there was a lack of attention to detail. All the greater, therefore, is the praise merited by Collegium Vocale 1704, in a twelve-strong line-up from which at least half the solo parts in Dido and Aeneas <\/em>could easily have been filled.<\/p>\n

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Dance scene choreographed by Kl\u00e1ra Lidova. Photo: Serghei Gherciu<\/p>\n

So was it a catastrophe? Not in the least. In defiance of the muddied thinking behind the production and despite the flaws in the musical rendition, we were presented with a beautiful piece of theatre. It was both modern and at the same time intelligently played with the spatial deception of a scenery \u00e0 l\u2019italienne<\/em>, the magnificence of Baroque machinery and flies, and the illusion captured in semi-transparent fabrics. Everything that was lost in the flimsy dramaturgy was found in the skilfully lit sets by Mat\u011bj\u00a0Cibulka, the discreet designs by Michal Moc\u0148\u00e1k, the suggestive costumes by Kate\u0159ina \u0160tefkova and the spectacular choreography by Kl\u00e1ra Lidova, performed by dancers and acrobats. What a wonderful show it would be if all of the creators and performers allowed themselves to be swept away by the magic of theatre: \u2018Aurora now had left her saffron bed, and beams of early light the heavens o\u2019erspread\u2019. Just like in the fourth book of The Aeneid<\/em>, in which Virgil depicted not just the death, but also the love of Dido.<\/p>\n

Translated by: John Comber<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ellen T. Harris, author of a recently reissued monograph of Dido and Aeneas and co-author of one of the critical editions of Purcell\u2019s opera, once lamented on the pages of The New York Times that the more we learn about this work, the less we know about it. And it\u2019s hard to disagree: the information … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-mangusta","4":"post-9432","6":"format-standard","7":"category-posts-in-english","8":"category-wedrowki-operowe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9432"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9437,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9432\/revisions\/9437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}