LA DIDONE
After Francesco Cavalli and Gian Francesco Busenello
Performed in English and Italian
UK Premiere
The Wooster Group
Elizabeth LeCompte Director
With performers:
Hai Ting Chinn, Ari Fliakos, Hank Heijink, Andrew Nolen, Kamala Sankaram, Scott Shepherd, Harvey Valdes, Kate Valk, Judson Williams, John Young
Bruce Odland Musical director
Jennifer Griesbach Assistant director
Ruud van der Akker Set Design
Jennifer Tipton, Gabe Maxson Lighting
Matt Schloss, Joby Emmons Sound
Zbigniew Bzymek, Anna Henckel-Donnersmarck, Reid Farrington Video
Dormi Cara, an excerpt from the Wooster Group's La Didone, performed by John Young
Jove, an excerpt from the Wooster Group's La Didone, performed by Andrew Nolen
The Wooster Group’s production of Francesco Cavalli’s opera La Didone takes up a work from the days when opera was an emerging art form, and sets it down in a new world splintered by video imagery and made brazen by the electric guitar. Stirring another Italian cultural work of art into the mix, the Group brings into collision the ancient shipwreck tale of Aeneas and his Dido with the crashed spaceships of Mario Bava’s 1965 Sci-fi B-movie horror film Planet of the Vampires. Identical leather spacesuits, forbidding planetary landscapes and battles with the walking dead meet with the baroque qualities of Cavalli’s score.
Production: The Wooster Group, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
