Cape Consort: Dido and Aeneas

Dido and Aeneas was the Cape Consort’s fifth appearance at the Fugard Studio. Previous productions – the four-part Monteverdi Project, which included a semi-staged version of John Blow’s opera Venus and Adonis – were met by critical acclaim and performed to sold-out houses.

In this creative staging by Marie Borstlap, the story of a Carthaginian queen and her Trojan hero, an ancestor of Rome’s founders, is transplanted to the present day. Dido is a mentally unstable young woman confined to the Carthage Asylum after the loss of her lover Aeneas, who has departed for Rome in pursuit of his career. Under the watchful eye of Belinda, matron of the asylum, Dido suffers terrible flashbacks of her lost love and horrible visions of the fateful forces that have overwhelmed her life. Distraught, Dido is pushed to the precipice, and her emotional turmoil culminates in the famous “Dido’s Lament”.