City of Manchester Opera - Dido & Aeneas + Orfeo ed Euridice

City of Manchester Opera (Como) returns to an evening of two one act operas in complete contrast to last year’s La Traviata;

Orfeo ed Euridice is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck, based on the myth of Orpheus and set to a libretto by Ranieri de’ CalzabigiThe piece was first performed at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 5 October 1762.

Orfeo ed Euridice is the first of Gluck’s “reform” operas, in which he attempted to replace the abstruse plots and overly complex music of opera seria with a “noble simplicity” in both the music and the drama.

The story of the opera is told with a directness that was revolutionary. Events unfold almost in real time, with a cumulative impact that even today can be overwhelming.

Sung in Italian with English Surtitles

Dido and Aeneus is the tragic love story of Dido and Aeneas told numerous times, and Henry Purcell famously turned it into one of the first English operas in the late seventeenth century.

Based on Virgil’s epic poem the Aeneid, the opera captures a moment during the course of his journey from Troy to Italy, where he will help to found to city of Rome, when Aeneas’ ship is blown off-course by a storm, and ends up taking refuge in the city of Carthage, the city Dido had founded.

The opera unfolds with a story of love, jealousy, deceit, and tragedy. A monumental work in Baroque opera, Dido and Aeneas is remembered as one of Purcell’s foremost theatrical works.

Sung in English