Dido & Aeneas

How to give contemporary meaning to a work first performed more than 300 years ago? This is a challenge met full on by one of the most innovative choreographers on the European scene. Indeed, Sasha Waltz enriches this classical opera with all the trappings of modern dance, transforming the work into a sequence of extraordinary images. Henry Purcell’s opera is a masterpiece from the baroque period, a time when dance played a leading role in the genre. Reconstructed by the Italian conductor Attilio Cremonesi in 2005, Dido & Aeneas tells the tragic story of the love between Dido, queen of Carthage, and Aeneas, the prince forced to flee from Troy. The opera culminates in “Dido’s Lament”, the famous aria sung by the woman who chooses to kill herself for love.