Dido and Aeneas

“The narrative of Dido and Aeneas is based mainly on Book IV of Virgil’s Aeneid and opens with Dido wrestling with her feelings for Aeneas and her duties as Queen of Carthage. Encouraged by Belinda, Dido accepts Aeneas’s proposal of marriage.The opera’s antagonist is a sorceress, who plots the downfall of Carthage and its monarch. The Sorceress summons a storm to separate the lovers: as Dido leaves to take shelter from the weather, Aeneas is stopped by the Roman messenger god Mercury, who is the Sorceress’s elf in disguise. The false Mercury encourages Aeneas to continue his journey to Italy – which had been interrupted by his being shipwrecked in Carthage – and build a new Troy. Aeneas believes this message from the ‘gods’, much to the Sorceress’s delight, and leaves to prepare his departure. The Sorceress plans to destroy Aeneas on the ocean. Aeneas admits his plan to depart Carthage to Dido, who forces him to leave. Dido sings her last aria and dies from her heartbreak, lighting a funeral pyre for Aeneas to see as he sails way.”

Taken from www.classical-music.com