Teatro Massimo tickets 21 February 2026 - Dido and Aeneas | GoComGo.com

Dido and Aeneas

Teatro Massimo, Palermo, Italy
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6:30 PM
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US$ 110

E-tickets: Print at home or at the box office of the event if so specified. You will find more information in your booking confirmation email.

You can only select the category, and not the exact seats.
If you order 2 or 3 tickets: your seats will be next to each other.
If you order 4 or more tickets: your seats will be next to each other, or, if this is not possible, we will provide a combination of groups of seats (at least in pairs, for example 2+2 or 2+3).

Important Info
Type: Opera
City: Palermo, Italy
Starts at: 18:30
Acts: 1
Duration: 1h

E-tickets: Print at home or at the box office of the event if so specified. You will find more information in your booking confirmation email.

You can only select the category, and not the exact seats.
If you order 2 or 3 tickets: your seats will be next to each other.
If you order 4 or more tickets: your seats will be next to each other, or, if this is not possible, we will provide a combination of groups of seats (at least in pairs, for example 2+2 or 2+3).

Cast
Performers
Conductor: Gabriele Ferro
Soprano: Roberta Mantegna (Dido)
Bass-Baritone: Zachary Altman (Aeneas)
Creators
Composer: Henry Purcell
Costume designer: Justin Arienti
Director: Lorenzo Amato
Librettist: Nahum Tate
Chorus Master: Salvatore Punturo
Lighting Designer: Vincenzo Raponi
Overview

Dido and Aeneas is an opera by Henry Purcell, composed in 1688. Based on the story from Virgil’s Aeneid, it tells the tragic tale of Queen Dido of Carthage and her doomed love for the Trojan hero Aeneas. After a passionate affair, Aeneas is compelled by the gods to leave Dido and fulfill his destiny in Italy. Heartbroken, Dido ultimately takes her own life. The opera is renowned for its expressive music, including the famous aria “When I am laid in earth,” and is a masterpiece of Baroque opera.

History
Premiere of this production: Josias Priest's girls' school, London

Dido and Aeneas is an opera in a prologue and three acts, written by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell with a libretto by Nahum Tate. It recounts the love of Dido, Queen of Carthage, for the Trojan hero Aeneas, and her despair when he abandons her.

Synopsis

Act 1
Dido's court

The opera opens with Dido in her court with her attendants. Belinda is trying to cheer up Dido, but Dido is full of sorrow, saying 'Peace and I are strangers grown'. Belinda believes the source of this grief to be the Trojan Aeneas, and suggests that Carthage's troubles could be resolved by a marriage between the two. Dido and Belinda talk for a time: Dido fears that her love will make her a weak monarch, but Belinda and the Second Woman reassure her that "The hero loves as well." Aeneas enters the court, and is at first received coldly by Dido, but she eventually accepts his proposal of marriage.

Act 2
Scene 1: The cave of the Sorceress

The Sorceress/Sorcerer is plotting the destruction of Carthage and its queen, and summons companions to help with evil plans. The plan is to send her "trusted elf" disguised as Mercury, someone to whom Aeneas will surely listen, to tempt him to leave Dido and sail to Italy. This would leave Dido heartbroken, and she would surely die. The chorus join in with terrible laughter, and the Enchantresses decide to conjure up a storm to make Dido and her train leave the grove and return to the palace. When the spell is prepared, the witches vanish in a thunderclap.

Scene 2: A grove during the middle of a hunt

Dido and Aeneas are accompanied by their train. They stop at the grove to take in its beauty. A lot of action is going on, with attendants carrying goods from the hunt and a picnic possibly taking place, and Dido and Aeneas are together within the activity. This is all stopped when Dido hears distant thunder, prompting Belinda to tell the servants to prepare for a return to shelter as soon as possible. As every other character leaves the stage, Aeneas is stopped by the Sorceress's elf, who is disguised as Mercury. This pretend Mercury brings the command of Jove that Aeneas is to wait no longer in beginning his task of creating a new Troy on Latin soil. Aeneas consents to the wishes of what he believes are the gods, but is heart-broken that he will have to leave Dido. He then goes off-stage to prepare for his departure from Carthage.

Act 3
The harbour at Carthage

Preparations are being made for the departure of the Trojan fleet. The sailors sing a song, which is followed shortly by the Sorceress and her companions' sudden appearance. The group is pleased at how well their plan has worked, and the Sorceress sings a solo describing her further plans for the destruction of Aeneas "on the ocean". All the characters begin to clear the stage after a dance in three sections, and then disperse.

The palace

Dido and Belinda enter, shocked at Aeneas’ disappearance. Dido is distraught and Belinda comforts her. Suddenly Aeneas returns, but Dido is full of fear before Aeneas speaks, and his words only serve to confirm her suspicions. She derides his reasons for leaving, and even when Aeneas says he will defy the gods and not leave Carthage, Dido rejects him for having once thought of leaving her. After Dido forces Aeneas to leave, she states that "Death must come when he is gone." The opera and Dido's life both slowly come to a conclusion, as the Queen of Carthage sings her last aria, "When I am laid in Earth", also known as "Dido's Lament." The chorus and orchestra then conclude the opera once Dido is dead by ordering the "cupids to scatter roses on her tomb, soft and gentle as her heart. Keep here your watch, and never, never part."

Venue Info

Teatro Massimo - Palermo
Location   Piazza Verdi

The Teatro Massimo Vittorio Emanuele is an opera house and opera company located on the Piazza Verdi in Palermo, Sicily. It was dedicated to King Victor Emanuel II. It is the biggest in Italy, and one of the largest of Europe (the third after the Opéra National de Paris and the K. K. Hof-Opernhaus in Vienna), renowned for its perfect acoustics.

The Teatro Massimo Vittorio Emanuele in Palermo opened its doors to the public on the evening of 16 May 1897, twenty-two years after the solemn public ceremony of the laying of the first stone. 
This took place on 12 January 1875, and ended a chequered series of vicissitudes with interminable squabbles lasting over ten years.
The international competition for the project and realisation of the opera house had been announced by Palermo Council in 1864, and its prime mover was the mayor, Antonio Starrabba di Rudini. 
For a long time there had been talk of building a big new theatre in Palermo, worthy of the second biggest city in southern Italy after Naples. 
Palermo, in the second half of the nineteenth century, was engaged in getting itself a new identity in the light of the new national unity. 
Cultural life was influenced by the new Italian State and the positive consequences of the activity of enlightened entrepreneurs like the Florios, who also made generous donations to the building of the opera house and for some years were also its no less enlightened managers. 
Intense commercial relations led to the convergence and development in Palermo of interests with a European dimension and brought the city to be continually in touch with different cultural models than its own. This was the start of the Belle Epoque, a time of cultural and economic rebirth for Palermo which would in turn become almost mythical for the future generations and was only to be interrupted by the outbreak of World War I.

The opening night happened on May 16 1897: Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff was the inaugural opera. The conductor was Leopoldo Mugnone. A ticket in the boxes would then cost 80 liras, one in the gallery just 3. At the time of its first opening, thanks to its surface of 7,730 square metres, the Teatro Massimo was the third in Europe, after the opera houses in Paris and Wien.

From the opening in 1897 to 1935 the opera seasons were put together by private firms, often a different one each year, that would organize the performances.

In 1935 the theatre was officially designated with a Decree from the Italian Ministry of Culture "Ente Teatrale Autonomo", and thus recognized as a public theatre.

In 1974 the theatre was closed for reconstruction works that were supposed to be finished in a relatively short time. It remained closed for 23 years and was reopened with the concert on May 12 1997, conducted by Franco Mannino in the first part and by Claudio Abbado in the second, with the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Important Info
Type: Opera
City: Palermo, Italy
Starts at: 18:30
Acts: 1
Duration: 1h
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