The Israeli Opera opened its 40th season on Tuesday with Dido and Aeneas, depicting North African Queen Dido (mezzo-soprano Anat Czarny) losing everything when Aeneas, the Greek hero she loves (baritone Oded Reich), wavers in his devotion. Written during the Baroque period by Nahum Tate and composed by Henry Purcell, the English-language opera is inspired by Virgil’s mythical poetic history of Rome and contains a wealth of emotions and psychological insights, now contained in a beautiful production.
Dido’s sole friend in court is her maid, Belinda (soprano Daniela Skorka). “Ah! Belinda, I am prest with torment,” she sings in the first act. Dido’s famous lament, sung in the last, is also addressed to her. Skorka was wonderful as a positive, cheery voice attempting to turn Dido’s gaze toward a new life with a suitor.
Aeneas, who unknowingly shoulders the burden of schlepping Troy to Rome and, by extension, allowing the British Empire to emerge, is clad in colorful garments and wears silver face paint.
Bold artistic vision
Director Stefano Poda’s bold artistic vision makes us suspect that there is something of a jester about this Aeneas. Dido’s face is the rare exception, a face without paint in a whirling group of dancers, sailors, and witches that wear face paint, appearing artificial.
Virgil’s Aeneas gets a clear, no-nonsense command from the gods to leave Dido and found an empire. In Tate’s adaptation, the divine instruction is, in fact, a nasty trick played on Dido by a sorceress (mezzo-soprano Shay Bloch) and two witches (soprano Tali Ketzef and mezzo-soprano Yarden Kiperman). The three evildoers emerge to the stage from below; with them, they bring the fiery depths of hell to “share in the fame of a mischief,” and they send an elf to pretend to be a mouthpiece for divine will.
Opera lovers might appreciate how well this role, a sensitive leader easily led astray by fancy, neatly connects to Reich’s previous performance as the founder of modern Zionism in Theodor. Reich gave a wonderful performance on Tuesday evening and was awarded with lavish applause.
Connecting to contemporary events
Presented to an Israeli audience after the October 7 terror attack and the two-year war that followed, this production does not shy from using a military-style drum march and showing, not telling, us the flames of hell that can always erupt under our very feet.
Czarny, in the role of the troubled queen, digs through the earth like a woman trying to hide from a rocket attack or a starving mother looking for roots to feed her children. “Keep here your watch,” she sings, and to a Jewish ear, after a year of unprecedented violence, these words ring truer than ever.
The dancers in this opera offer to the eye a dazzling series of conflicts and aggressions that flow around the stage. Women and men assault, carry, and grapple one another in what seems to be both an abbreviated Bellum omnium contra omnes (war of all against all) and a manifestation of Dido’s own conflicted soul. Her wounded pride can’t abide knowing Aeneas even considered listening to the gods and leaving her behind, and so, she forces him out first and pays full price for that decision.
The first opera shown in 1985 at the New Israeli Opera, when it opened with mezzo-soprano Anne Howells as Dido and a stage design inspired by Muslim and Christian courts, the decision to open the 40th opera season on Tuesday with Dido and Aeneas is a lovely nod to the past while ensuring the opera in Israel has a future.
Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell will be performed at the Israeli Opera from Thursday, November 20, to Friday, November 28. NIS 285 to NIS 490 per ticket, depending on seat selections. Sung in English with Hebrew and English titles. 19 Shaul Hamelech Blvd., Tel Aviv. To book, call (03) 6927777 or visit https://www.israel-opera.co.il/en/.
A 45-minute behind-the-stage tour is offered on Friday, November 21, at 11:45 a.m. and Sunday, November 23, at 4:45 p.m. Discuss the opera with the singers at Opera Talkback, held at the second level of the Opera House after shows on Thursday, November 20; Saturday, November 22; and Sunday, November 23. Hebrew only.