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Article: Toronto Masque Theatre: Dido and Aeneas/Aeneas and Dido.(Opera review)
- Article from:
- Opera Canada
- Article date:
- May 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Opera Canada Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Toronto Masque Theatre, under Artistic Director Larry Beckwith, has a mandate to blend the performing arts together to recreate the ethos of a Renaissance or Baroque masque while not being chained to any period. TMT's latest show was an inspired double bill of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and the world premiere of Aeneas and Dido by composer James Rolfe and librettist Andre Alexis.
Both operas look at the love affair between the widowed Queen of Carthage and her Trojan visitor, and Aeneas's betrayal of that love. Cleverly, the new opera deliberately used the same vocal types and chorus as Purcell, duplicating the instruments of that composer's small Baroque ...