“When I am laid, am laid in earth, may my wrongs create / No trouble, no trouble in, in thy breast.” My heart aches and my ears delight as Dido’s soprano rings out, clear as a bell, lamenting the loss of her great love. From the first notes of Henry Purcell’s famed opera, Dido and Aeneas, I knew that I was hearing something truly spectacular. Although I have never experienced the heartache that accompanies the end of a serious relationship, especially when that heartache involves the sinister plotting of witches and the god Mercury, I can still identify with Dido’s pain.
Aristotle identified the six elements of Greek Tragedy as: plot, character, thought, diction, song and spectacle. In Poetics, he asserts that ‘plot’ is the most important, for without plot, there is no tragedy. I respectfully disagree. While plot may be essential to shaping the events of a play, without great music, the story is sure to fall flat.
Dido’s Lament begins with the recitativo, providing the audience with background
information and setting the stage for what’s to come. Sure, the intonation is pretty and the lyrics are engaging, but it isn’t until the aria that the emotion of the story really hits you. “Remember me, remember me, but ah / Forget my fate / Remember..,” Dido wails, as the pitch rises and she elaborates on her grief. The tempo slows as Dido’s despair reaches its pinnacle and she plunges Aeneas’ sword deep into her heart.
It’s easy to come up with a story. It is much harder to create a connection between listeners and that plot. It is thanks to music that tales of sorrow or elation can transcend time and space, allowing listeners in the twenty-first century to feel the same well of emotion that listeners felt in the seventeenth century.
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