Purcell: Dido and Aeneas

Dido and Aeneas is one of the greatest seventeenth-century operas, much performed and recorded today, yet its origins are obscure (it was never performed in public in Purcell's lifetime), and it has not come down to us in its original form. In this performance with an all-star cast, bringing the Purcell Project to a fitting end, Dido is offered as it might have been heard at its first performance at Josias Priest's girls' school in Chelsea in 1688. This involves restoring dance music cut out when the opera was put on in London in the early eighteenth century and allocating the role of the Sorceress to a bass as Purcell intended – at the time theatrical witches were conventionally portrayed by men in drag.

The performance is prefaced with an anthology of music written for Restoration plays, including Matthew Locke's remarkable Masque of Orpheus from Settle's tragedy The Empress of Morocco, John Eccles's sensational mad song 'I burn', written for the great actress Anne Bracegirdle and sung by Helen Charlston, and a newly discovered theatre song by Henry Purcell.

Programme:
Purcell Dido & Aeneas (concert performance with scenes from Restoration Theatre)

Performers:
Helen Charlston Dido
Philippa Hyde Belinda
Michael Craddock Aeneas
Stuart O'Hara The Sorceress
Psalmody
Essex Baroque Orchestra
Peter Holman director

Supported by the SVF Purcell Project Fund.