DIDO and AENEAS (2020)

This production of Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas takes the form of an opera-film with parallel audio and visual narratives. The music follows the opera's original libretto. The visual component tells an analogous story from Chinese history, centering on the film actress Shangguan Yunzhu and her alleged affair with Mao Zedong before the country's Cultural Revolution. We hope to highlight the ways in which dramatic tropes and archetypes of the Western canon are, in fact, present all over the world, and to expand the relevance of this European story to a wider variety of cultures and peoples.

Performances by the Opera Theatre of Yale College. Directed by Katharine Li.

Photography Direction and Film Editing by Annelise Ayuravann Ratner.