The tragedy can be felt in ‘Dido, Aeneas us & all’

They may be a little less famous than Romeo and Juliet, but Dido and Aeneas are at least as doomed as lovers. If we hadn’t picked up on that from Virgil’s epic poem, we would have picked it up from Henry Purcell’s fabulous chamber opera (c. 1659-1695). It has only really made them immortal, with the final aria ‘Dido’s lament’ as a tragic highlight†

Always risky, taking such a famous piece of music as the starting point for a choreography: how to respond to well-known sounds, without illustrating soporifically, but with artistic added value? Brazilian Samir Calixto, who works in the Netherlands, has already chosen monuments from music history. So this time Dido and Aeneaswhose history he Dido, Aeneas us & all to a higher cosmic level – hence the telescope and projections of planets and galaxies – by drawing a parallel between their love crushed by witches, duties and storms and the position of modern man in a world where all certainties have been swept away.

Human Physical

As a choreographer he remains dependent on the expression of the human physique. Calixto and Erika Poletto – beautiful dancers – sketch the loneliness of man in search of his other half. As their eyes barely meet, distance remains, no matter how close they move around each other with great swinging movements of arms, hips and torso, feet firmly planted in the ground. Storm and thunder sound between Purcell’s arias and choirs, often played with a lot of reverberation.

Their initially synchronous or mirrored movements gradually become more passionate and only at the end do they calm down when the dancers, half naked, blindfolded and groping, finally embrace each other – only to have to let go. If ‘Dido’s lament’ follows, then the tragedy, how could it be otherwise, can be felt good. Several times, however, Calixto has to spread his movement arsenal a bit thinly to fill the music. That too is a danger of such famous compositions.