Synopsis

Nahum Tate’s libretto for Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas is based on the story in Virgil’s Aeneid, but he alters the narrative by drawing additionally on a variety of sources from seventeenth-century English theater. His distinctive alterations include the use of witches rather than gods and goddesses and Dido’s death from grief rather than suicide. In adapting seventeenth-century dramatic text, Tate succeeds brilliantly in transforming decasyllabic blank verse into short rhymed units particularly suitable for singing. His distinctive retelling, use of repeated images, and surprising adherence to the Aristotelian unities provide insight into the meaning of the text.