Dido and Aeneas

Dido and Æneas is an opera by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell, from a libretto by Nahum Tate. The first known performance was at a girls' school in the spring of 1689 and hence is given catalogue number Z. 626. It comprises three acts and lasts about an hour. It is based on a story from the fourth book of Virgil's Aeneid, of the legendary Queen of Carthage Dido and the Trojan refugee Æneas. When Æneas and his crew are shipwrecked in Carthage, he and the queen fall in love. However, Æneas must soon leave to found Rome. Dido cannot live without him and awaits death. This work is somewhat problematic, since no score in Purcell's hand is extant, and the only seventeenth century source is a libretto, possibly from the original performance. The difficulty is that no later sources follow the act divisions of the libretto, and the music to the prologue is lost. Part of this stems from the practice of the time of using such entertainments to add spice to another piece, such as...