The baroque opera "Dido and Aeneas" marks the return to the stage of the Deux-Sèvres chamber choir

After a year and a half of absence linked to the health crisis, the ensemble returns with the famous piece by Briton Henry Purcell. The premiere will be unveiled to the public on November 7, 2021 on the stage of the Dôme de Niort.

The Deux-Sèvres departmental chamber choir is finally back on stage with Dido and Aenea. Before the first public performance on November 7, 2021 in Niort, the fifty artists, professionals and amateurs, tirelessly rehearse their score. In the boxes, the excitement is felt. "A little stress, but above all a lot of joy after a year and a half without having been able to sing, we are super motivated", rejoices Anne Koppe, director of the Deux-Sèvres chamber choir.

Baroque music and traditional dance

Directed in a version revisited by Anne Maugard, Henry Purcell's masterpiece is shot through with humour, dance, magic, drama and of course, love. "It's a first to back dance and traditional music to a baroque opera," says the director. A daring project, interpreted on period instruments, which seduced the conductor Joël Cartier. "We work in this spirit of alternating the works with the singers and the instrumental works that accompany the dances", explains the musician.

Mythology at the heart of the news

This chamber opera recounts the passion between the Queen of Carthage and a Trojan prince, torn between love and duty. Aeneas, from whom the line of the mythical founders of Rome will come, is driven out of Troy by the Greeks and ends up in Carthage, where reigns Dido, a Syrian from Tire who fled the civil war. Dido and Aeneas fall in love, but the Gods disapprove of their love at first sight: Aeneas' destiny is to go and found Rome and not to love the queen. Dido, at first hesitant, nevertheless gives in to Aeneas. But deceived by a witch, he abandons his beloved who dies of despair...

"Didon and Aenea" by the Deux-Sèvres departmental choir at 4 p.m. at the Dôme de Nornon in Niort on November 7 and December 4, 2021 at 9 p.m. at the Palais des Congrès in Parthenay.

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