"Conductor-director Chip Grant's new company started
life in style, with a theatrically vivid and musically splendid outdoor
staging of Purcell's opera."
- Joshua Kosman SF Chronicle Top 10 Classical Music 2009 In Review
Info about 2010 performances coming soon!
DIDO & AENEAS - August 2009
A city that is destroyed by flames, sailors who come and go, and a tragic queen ... very San Francisco
Kindra Scharich as Dido photos Kyle Hailey
written by Henry Purcell libretto by Nahum Tate
directed by Chip Grant developed in collaboration with Kue King
Urban Opera, a new opera company in San
Francisco, launches its inaugural production with the first existing
English opera, Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, on August 21st
featuring mezzo-soprano Kindra Scharich in the title role.
Performance Information
Friday, August 21, 2009 Saturday, August 22, 2009 Sunday, August 23, 2009
All performances begins at 7:00 PM, the doors will open at 6:30 PM
Urban Opera ArtSpace 409 - 499 Illinois Street (@ 16th Street) Mission Bay, San Francisco
Please Note: General Admission tickets will be available for purchase at the door by check or cash. It is a large outdoor space so we will be able to fit you in.
Program Details
Dido and Aeneas is Purcell’s setting of Nahum Tate’s libretto, based on a story from Virgil’s Aeneid. The opera mixes gods, heroes, mortals, and evil spirits into a one-hour Greek tragedy.
The opera begins with a spoken prologue (the original music has been lost) between the gods followed by a staged overture designed to bring those unfamiliar with Virgil’s Fourth Book of The Aeneid up to speed. Dido, the powerful Queen of Carthage is shadowed by a malevolent spirit. She is brought out of her despair by her court and by the arrival of the Trojan hero, Aeneas. At first Love seems triumphant however Dido is ultimately undone by the evil forces of the witches, by the fate the gods have set for Aeneas, and her own pride.
Urban Opera brings together singers and actors from across a broad spectrum of the music world. Featured with Ms. Scharich, are sopranos Kimarie Torre (Belinda), Milissa Carey (Sorceress), Pamela Igelsrud (Second Woman), tenor Todd Wedge (Aeneas), counter-tenors Cortez Mitchell (First Witch/Mercury) and Michael McNeil (Second Witch/Sailor). The production is accompanied by The Jubilate Baroque Orchestra.
Kue King’s modern costume design coupled with contemporary theatrical devices aid in bringing the opera out of antiquity and into a modern sensibility.
This site-specific performance will take place in an elevated park sheltered between two beautiful new buildings in Mission Bay. A grove, a meadow, and a spectacular bay view transports viewers out of the everyday and into another world. Told as the sun sets, Dido’s lament, “Remember me, but ah! Forget my fate,” seems timeless.
Photo - Dante Cheung-LaCount as Cupid / Aschanius & Todd Wedge as Aeneas
Location
The Elevated Plaza @ 409 - 499 Illinois Street near 16th Street.
The lovely elevated park features bamboo groves, a sculpture meadow, and a magnificent bay view. It is located near 16th Street directly across from the UCSF Mission Bay Campus.
Kindra Scharich as Dido photos Kyle Hailey 
Program Details
Photos by Kyle Hailey
David Peterson as Phoebus
Margaret Marshall as Venus
Kindra Scharich as Dido
Millisa Carey as The Soceress