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Dido and Aeneas, from a Roman fresco, Pompeian Third Style (10 BC – 45 AD), Pompeii, Italy. Before Dido and Aeneas, Purcell had composed music for several stage works, including nine pieces for Nathaniel Lee's Theodosius, or The Force of Love (1680) and eight songs for Thomas d'Urfey's A Fool's Preferment (1688).
Dido's Lament ("When I am laid in earth") is the closing aria from the opera Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell to a libretto by Nahum Tate. Dido's Lament chromatic fourth ground bass, measures 1–6 [1] It is included in many classical music textbooks to illustrate the descending chromatic fourth (passus duriusculus) in the ground bass.
The composition of Dido and Aeneas gave Purcell his first chance to write a sustained musical setting of a dramatic text. It was his only opportunity to compose a work in which the music carried the entire drama. [14] The story of Dido and Aeneas derives from the original source in Virgil's epic the Aeneid. [17]
The final scene in Metastasio's libretto, Didone Abandonata, by Cecilio Rizzardini Didone abbandonata (Dido Abandoned) is an opera in three acts composed by Domenico Sarro to a libretto by Pietro Metastasio of the same name which was based on the story of Dido and Aeneas from the fourth book of Virgil's Aeneid.
The story of Dido and Aeneas remained popular throughout the post-Renaissance era and was the basis for many operas, with the libretto by Metastasio, Didone abbandonata, proving especially popular with composers throughout the eighteenth century and beyond:
The opera was first performed in the winter of 1762 in Copenhagen, and was composed especially for the Danish court of the time. The opera consists of three acts, and the libretto is based upon the well-known story of Dido and Aeneas. Metastasio's libretto had already been extensively used throughout the century.
Welcomed by Dido, Carthage's Queen, with a feast, Aeneas tells the tale of Troy's fall "With Words so sweet and Sighs so deep, / that oft he made them all to Weep" (lines 23–24). Following Aeneas's grand tale, all leave the feast and go to sleep, save for Dido who finds herself unable to sleep, kept awake by her desire for Aeneas.
The plot is based on Virgil's Aeneid (Book 4 in particular), though Busenello, in his second libretto for Cavalli, replaces Dido's tragic suicide of Virgil with a happy ending in which Dido marries Iarbas, King of the Getuli, who saves Dido from herself after Aeneas abandons her. The action is divided into a prologue and 3 acts.