danuv | (no subject)

I'm watching Dido & Aeneas tonight as performed by the Mark Morris Dance Group. The music is beautiful, I'd never heard it before. I'm rather thrown off by Mr. Morris dancing the part of a woman. I wonder if it was ego on his part ("...but I want the juicy part!") or if he just felt like playing some gender games. The choreography is very reminiscent of paintings on Greek pottery which I suppose is obvious but still well done (I think). The guy playing Aeneas is a gorgeous gorgeous (one more time for emphasis) gorgeous hunk of a man. I would like him for dinner, which by the way I haven't had and hope it arrives before I finish this bottle of wine off.

edit: Ok so the top review on imdb says, "Not only is the female lead played by a man (Morriss himself, alluding to ancient performance practice)" ... which of course I'd completely forgotten about female roles being played by men historically. Feh. I still think he probably just wanted the fun part. :P

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Elissa is another name for Dido. [Yeah. She's a complicated lady.] Virgil doesn't treat the destruction of Carthage — in his version, Dido makes a huge funeral pyre of everything he left behind on the bed they'd shared, and then stabs herself. Aeneas sees the flames from her pyre as he sails away. Mr. Tate, Purcell's lyricist, may have been confused, or he may be referring to Carthage's eventual destruction at the hands of the Romans, which Virgil says grew out of this unhappy story.

I have no idea why Tate chooses to say the queen's forsook, but it's completely charming. Maybe he was just phoning it in.

That makes sense. I need to get this music from J. Surely he has it.

So they had lyricists even back then? I had no idea. I though that was a modern concession to commercial concerns or something.