Joyce DiDonato and Nicholas Phan: Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas

In one of the great highlights of the NYC arts season, superstar mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato gives two concert performances of a work that has become a signature: Purcell’s passionate, heartbreaking, emotionally rich opera Dido and Aeneas.

Dido was a role DiDonato’s legions of fans couldn’t wait to hear her take on. Now she owns it. DiDonato probes Dido’s desire and anguish with singing of profound emotional depth and astonishing – even otherworldly – beauty. Her performance of the opera’s exquisite “When I am laid in earth,” widely known as “Dido’s Lament,” is considered one of the most sublime matches of singer and song of our time.

The program opens with the artists performing the extraordinary biblical tale Jephthe, the companion work on DiDonato’s Dido and Aeneas recording, widely hailed as a landmark. The concerts reunite DiDonato with the stellar forces on that celebrated recording, Il Pomo d’Oro and conductor Maxim Emelyanychev, with the superb, elegant lyric tenor Nicholas Phan joining as Aeneas. There are just two opportunities to experience this thrilling production in NYC. It is not to be missed.