Didon & Énée – Concert version « Le Poème Harmonique

Didon & Énée – Concert version

A queen, already a widow, succumbs to the departure of a lover driven by fate. How can today’s audiences be introduced to this drama without leaving the poetic language of Tate and Purcell at the door? In the 17th century, what we call desire, conflict and emotion is evoked by hallucinatory metaphors and fairy or infernal interventions.

From the pit, Vincent Dumestre conjures up echoes of lyrical tragedy and Elizabethan masks. The majesty of Lully and the melancholy of Dowland haunt a musical framework in which improvisation techniques inherited from lutenists are used. The singers and musicians of Le Poème Harmonique rival each other in ardour and imagination, for a concert that is as hectic as it is unforgettable.

After a stage premiere in 2014 at the Opéra de Rouen, repeated at the Opéra Royal de Versailles and then at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, a production that received critical acclaim and public praise, Le Poème Harmonique is reviving this grand opera in a concert version, a work regularly celebrated for its brilliance and mass appeal.