Opera Double Bill

A startling and contrasting double bill of twentieth- and seventeenth-century operas from these islands. Following the world premiere of his Kommilitonen! in 2011, Royal Academy Opera stages Maxwell Davies’s most performed opera, a mysterious and supernatural psychological thriller based on a true story of the unexplained disappearance of three lighthouse keepers. Traditional folk music, hymns and percussion coexist within a framework of modern music theatre at its most potent.

The evening opens with one of the cornerstones of baroque opera and a progenitor of the English operatic tradition. Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas tells the tragic story of the Queen of Carthage’s love for the last Prince of Troy and her despair when he abandons her at the command of the gods.

This audacious pairing of operas is staged by the same production team as Royal Academy Opera’s previous summer productions of Die Dreigroschenoper (2011) and Mansfield Park (2012).

The Academy welcomes the returns of Lionel Friend, conductor of last year’s Mansfield Park, and of Iain Ledingham, Royal Academy Opera’s former Director of Opera.