December 3, 2017, Sunday - Sonomento presents Dido and Aeneas at MacPhail

Time: 7 pm

Location: MacPhail Center for Music, Antonello Hall, 501 Second Street S

Sonomento presents Dido and Aeneas

Sonomento, under the direction of Craig Fields, opens its tenth season with an encore presentation of the 2008 concert performance of Dido and Aeneas, which some call “the greatest opera ever written in the English language.” This stirring English baroque opera was presented in 2008 to launch MacPhail’s Spotlight Series. It will be presented with outstanding professional string players from the Minneapolis area and the forty voices of Sonomento. They will be joined by a strong cast of professional soloists, featuring soprano Riley Svatos in the title role, soprano Naomi Karstad as Belinda, mezzo-soprano Sally Clayburn as the Sorceress and baritone Erik Krohg as Aeneas, in an intensely stirring performance with baroque orchestra. This is music that will lift your spirit and stir your soul!

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The brilliant, 30-year-old composer Henry Purcell, considered to be the greatest English composer of any era, completed this dramatic piece in 1689. It is considered the first opera written in English and was premiered at the Chelsea School for Girls in London. Based on the Fourth Book of the Aeneid, it tells of the tragic and touching love affair between Aeneas, hero of the Trojan wars and the beautiful Dido, the virgin queen of Carthage, who dies of a broken heart.

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This season’s concerts are all fundraisers for our 2018 Tour of the British Isles and appearance at the famous Eisteddfod Music Festival in Wales. Donations are much appreciated.