Love knows no boundaries - not even the laws of harmony, as Gesualdo's exquisitely passionate madrigals can attest! But when love turns to loss, music turns grief into healing beauty in two exquisite laments.

Monteverdi takes us to the lonely shores of Naxos, where Ariadne, having sacrificed everything to save her beloved Theseus from the claws of the Minotaur, watches in disbelief as Theseus’s ship sails away without her, never to return. Even as she cries to heaven for vengeance, her tears bear witness to the tenderness of the love that will haunt her forever.

But for a truly perfect blend of music and sorrow, nothing surpasses Dido’s Lament, ‘When I am laid in earth’, as the abandoned Queen of Carthage surrenders to death’s embrace. It’s the final scene in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas: one of the very first English operas and still one of the best-loved, and we’re thrilled to present this complete concert performance of Purcell’s masterpiece.

Monteverdi
Lamento d’Arianna
Litany of the Blessed Virgin
Lamento della Ninfa

Gesualdo
Madrigals

Purcell
Dido and Aeneas

Roland Peelman - Conductor
Sydney Chamber Choir
Belinda Montgomery - Soprano
David Greco - Baritone
The Muffat Collective