At just under an hour, Purcell’s 1689 “Dido and Aeneas” is one of the shortest operas in the standard repertoire. Yet within that span it covers just about everything an opera might require — not only those old standbys love and death, but also dance, comedy and black magic.
It’s like an operatic bonsai, with all its parts miniaturized but still intact.
In the exquisite production that opened over the weekend at Opera San José — the company’s first in-person offering since before the COVID-19 pandemic — director Elkhanah Pulitzer celebrates the piece’s small-bore dimensions to maximal theatrical effect. Each stage of the narrative is set off and framed, like the pages in an opulent storybook, and designers Seth Reiser (scenery and lighting) and Ulises Alcala (costumes) give each one a distinctive pastel color scheme.
So we have Dido, the queen of Carthage, burdened by an unspoken affection that overshadows what should be the joy of her empire’s prosperity, amid an airy expanse of white and green. The visiting Aeneas, in his foppish salmon attire, marks the onset of a brief requited love. A coven of witches, determined to bring Dido to a tragic end out of sheer spite, snarl and writhe in spectral purple and midnight black.
The point of all this is not simply to explore the color wheel — though the visual palette is delightful in its own right — but to streamline the opera’s dramaturgy to its most basic elements. Between the 17th century diction of its libretto and the assumptions about what audiences may know about the backstory (Aeneas is caught in an interlude between the fall of Troy and his destiny as the founder of the Roman Empire) “Dido” can sometimes be a bit hard to follow.
Yet the afternoon performance on Sunday, Nov. 14, at the California Theatre, the second in the run, emerged as a crystalline display of narrative cogency. Each episode served its purpose and moved on. Even the dance interlude — as superfluous as every dance interlude in every opera — was smoothly integrated into the proceedings.
It helped, too, that the entire cast, suavely led by Music Director Joseph Marcheso, delivered the music with a combination of textural transparency and expressive urgency. Mezzo-soprano Nikola Printz was a heartrending, musically resplendent Dido, thrillingly fierce in moments of queenly scorn and entirely sympathetic in the character’s indelible final lament. As Aeneas, baritone Efraín Solís pleaded his case with eloquent nobility.
But some of the most thrilling vocal contributions came from soprano Maya Kherani as Dido’s right-hand woman Belinda, singing with splendid purity of tone and a degree of rhythmic virtuosity that spoke of emotional undercurrents. Bass-baritone Nathan Stark’s Sorcerer was a chilling embodiment of malice, mezzo-soprano Erin Alford gave a fluent performance as Dido’s second attendant, and countertenor Logan Tanner enjoyed a brief moment of splendor as the otherworldly spirit who pretends to be a Jovian messenger but isn’t.
The sleekness of the proceedings found its payoff in the opera’s magnificent final scene, when time slows down and the depths of Dido’s grief and betrayal become fully manifest. Marcheso’s tempo grew even statelier, Printz’s singing more richly eloquent, and as the chorus of attendants drew discreetly away from Dido’s bier in ones and twos, it was hard to suppress a sob.
“Dido and Aeneas”: Opera San José. Through Nov. 28. $55-$195. California Theatre, 345 S. First St., San Jose. 408-437-4450. www.operasj.org