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An oldie but a goodie

Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and Manitoba Opera bring baroque classic Dido & Aeneas to the intimate Westminster United Church

By: Kenton Smith

Even among the centuries-old art form that is opera, Henry Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas is one of the real oldies.

"It’s not among what’s usually trotted out for the modern classical audience," says visiting Canadian countertenor Daniel Taylor, who’s directing a "semi-staging" of the English baroque composer’s work next week, a co-presentation of the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and Manitoba Opera. "For that reason alone, this is to be a standout event."

Presented in the smaller, more intimate confines of Westminster United Church and consisting also of a short concert of period music, the hour-long opera also provides opportunity to "have a closer encounter with the music itself.

To be sung in English, with a libretto penned by Nahum Tate — England’s poet laureate at the time — Dido & Aeneas is one of thousands of operas known to have been written in the so-called baroque era between roughly 1600 and the mid-18th century. It is considered among the "original" operas, from the period when the art form first came into true being.

"What distinguishes the music is a certain purity of harmonies," Taylor explains. "There’s also a lot of rhetorical gestures and motifs, like sighing, as well as pictorial passages.

"There’s certainly a place today for music that’s less complicated."

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