Dido and Aeneas, Coronide at The Estates Theatre

The opera by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell was premiered in 1689 in Chelsea. The story is based on Book IV of Virgil’s The Aeneid, recounting the love of Dido, Queen of Carthage, for the Trojan hero Aeneas. The overarching theme is the conflict between love and duty. Dido and Aeneas will be performed within a mixed bill with Vít Zouhar’s contemporary opera Coronide, a work inspired by Baroque techniques.

Unlike the libretto, the original score to Francesco Peli’s Coronide has not been preserved, hence the Baroque 2000 festival commissioned new music from Vít Zouhar (b. 1966). The composer selected from the text the most impressive passages and supplemented them with commentaries from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In 2000, Coronide was performed by the renowned Ensemble Damian and met with positive responses in the Czech Republic, as well as in Germany, Italy, Estonia and Latvia. The opera was also presented within the Pounding on the Iron Curtain project at the Estates Theatre in 2004. The new production will be a contribution to the programme of Czech Music Year.