She is hardly a feminist hero, or even a particularly strong woman in general.
president, being wooed by an Italian politician and then immediately dying, by heart-break, once he leaves. So the opera’s “modernized” plot, makes an unfortunately bleak statement of feminine nature though the brochure broadly proclaims: “the intent is not to make a political statement but, in fact, the opposite.” One, however, cannot help but observe certain political ramifications of Dido, the first U.S. She is not even granted the grand gesture of impaling herself on the very sword which Aeneas left behind, in her chambers, symbolically portraying how deeply his leaving her cut, though, seemingly, he had no choice but to leave. Certainly, the performance does make her initially a “strong” female lead in that Dido has attained political power and at first rebuffs the advances of Aeneas, but in the wake of him leaving her, she simply dies of heart-break. She has raised the walls and given the city laws, so she is no mean figure, and certainly no damsel in distress. Learning this from the shade of her husband, she used a store of hidden and buried gold to found her own city, Carthage, with those supporters still loyal to her murdered husband. She is no simply politician but a gallant woman whose brother, Sychaeus, killed her husband, Pygmalion, in a play for power. It may be appropriate here to list a few of Dido’s accomplishments neglected in the performance. For Aeneas is visited not once but twice telling him that he must get on with his fate and not trust in a Carthaginian woman. They cause the storm, Dido and Aeneas consummate their blooming feelings for each other, and thus begins Dido’s descent. Juno and Venus then conspire to “wed” Aeneas and Dido by means of causing a storm during a hunt. One might imagine that both Aeneas and Dido would accept the overwhelming evidence of his need some day to depart, as was fated, as an intelligent reason not to enter into any sort of relationship, but unbeknownst to Dido, Venus, goddess of love, sent her son Eros/Cupid to prick her with an arrow which infatuated her with Aeneas and all things Aeneas. He also mentions that from three distinct and trustworthy sources (Creusa, his former wife, Helenus, the prophet (with the help of Apollo), and Celaeno the Harpy) that he must go on to Ausonia or Italy (Hesperia). During their first night together, Aeneas regales the queen with stories of the fall of Troy and his and his people’s sufferings on the high seas.
After a particularly devastating storm sent by Juno, the Trojans wash up on Carthage in Northern Africa, where Dido offers them refuge. In the story, Aeneas and the Trojans have spent seven years at sea after their precious Troy has fallen by the mechanations of Minerva and Juno. The original story featuring the tragic love of Dido and Aeneas was Vergils’ Aeneid from the first century BCE, one of the only written Roman epics still extant, and considered by some a work surpassing Homer and by others a rank work of imitation and political propaganda for the newly coronated Caesar Augustus.
Julie Maykowsi, added a whole coven (who truly stole the show). The major difference between Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” and Vergil’s account, is that Purcell adds a sorceress who is bent on the destruction of Dido rather than unhappy fortune being the main culprit, and the SDSU opera house, and its newly appointed director, Dr. The opera, “Dido and Aeneas”, is itself a modernization by Henry Purcell of the original Dido and Aeneas account from Book IV of Vergil’s Aeneid, and the opera we saw was a modernization of that 1689 riff on the classical love and loss story. Staged in their Smith Recital Hall which seats 300, but probably had about 150 tonight, the theatre is small, intimate, and lit well for the occasion. The Southern California Classical Society in conjunction with The History of Western Thought had the opportunity to send a small coterie to investigate just what San Diego State University’s first Opera of the season had to offer.
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