IOpera: Dido and Aeneas plus The Emperor of Atlantis

Melbourne Opera’s collaborator on our hit production of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny in May, IOpera presents an operatic double-bill for Remembrance Weekend: two powerful chamber operas with extraordinary performance histories. Dido & Aeneas (c. 1683) is commonly described as the finest English opera before Benjamin Britten. It is also a thinly-veiled political allegory, in this case referencing the fraught circumstances in England at that time (perhaps echoed today!!) that led to the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688. The Emperor of Atlantis was composed in Theresienstadt (Terezin) in 1943. At that time this old Austro-Hungarian garrison town had been requisitioned by the Nazis as a Jewish ghetto-camp. Its creators were subsequently murdered at Auschwitz; the score, however, survived. Rediscovered some thirty years later, it is now considered a modern classic; a lyrical score of great expressive power.

Cast:

Henry Purcell. Dido & Aeneas (1683)

Dido: Naomi Flatman

Belinda: Eliza Bennetts O’Connor

Second Woman: Lisette Bolton

Aeneas: Chistopher Hillier

Sorcerer: Robert MacFarlane

Witch: Esther Counsel

Witch/Spirit: Cecily Woodberry

Sailor: Doug Kelly

Viktor Ullmann. The Emperor of Atlantis (1943)

Emperor: Christopher Hillier

Loudspeaker: Tiernan Maclaren

Harlequi:n Robert MacFarlane

Soldier: Doug Kelly

A Girl: Lisette Bolton

Death: Eddie Muliaumaseali’i

Drummer: Victoria Lambourn

When: 7:30 pm Friday 11 November & Saturday 12 November

Where: Lithuanian Club, 44 Errol St North Melbourne

Tickets: https://www.trybooking.com/CCWLC

Running time 2 hours (including interval)