Feature: Power in an Age of Healing: The Queen of Carthage in Vancouver

Dance International

A rare female leader in classical mythology, Dido has lived in the contemporary imagination through countless re-interpretations. In many of these, stemming from Virgil’s Aeneid, Dido is presented as a tragic figure who founds the great city of Carthage but later commits suicide when she is abandoned by her lover, Aeneas, the founder of Rome. Dido’s journey has been immortalized through plays, songs, and dances throughout the centuries, perhaps most hauntingly in the aria Dido’s Lament from Henry Purcell’s 1688 opera, Dido and Aeneas. 

In a fresh take on Dido’s story, the creative team of The Queen of Carthage (co-produced by Early Music Vancouver and re:Naissance Opera) is digging deep to create a new multidisciplinary production that intersects with contemporary issues.