Dido Reloaded / Go, Aeneas, Go!

“Go, Aeneas, Go!” was awarded with the First Price at the Berliner Opernpreis 14 organized by the Neuköllner Oper und GASAG.

Six creative minds summoned by the OBNC. Xavier Bonfill, Raquel García-Tomás, Joan Magrané and Octavi Rumbau offer up this ‘flowing chamber opera’ based on the classical myth of Dido and Aeneas. Written by Cristina Cordero and directed by Jordi Pérez Solé, this is contemporary opera for a Europe in crisis.

Dido reloaded evokes the dilemmas embodied by its female protagonist, the ruler of a European country who experiences firsthand the eternal conflict between desire and duty that every leader faces. Dido and Aeneas come together at a crossroads between two cultures, immersed in a conflict of love that stems from political affairs reaching far beyond their personal desires. Dido fears that giving her love to Aeneas will diminish her ability to rule.

Go, Aeneas, Go! follows the journey of our male hero, who fights for the utopian ideal of Europe against an inauspicious backdrop. Modern Aeneas is a civil servant who, for the sake of a unified Europe, embarks on a voyage across the Union, battling skepticism in even those countries which seem most devoted to his ideas.

Mythological gods are a far cry from the world of today, but… do money, markets, growth prospects and the risk premium not leave us just as vulnerable as the humans of these tales?

Dido Reloaded, was released independently in October 2013 at the Royal Academy of Medicine in Barcelona and at Madrid’s Sala Berlanga. After this first experience, the same team wanted to continue their research and started writing a second project named “Go, Aeneas, Go!”. This second half was awarded first prize at the Berliner Opernpreis 14, organized by the Neuköllner  Oper and GASAG. Thanks to this award it was also released independently in May 2014 at the Russisches Haus der Wissenschaft und Kultur, after a stay of the entire creative team in the German city, and later made a brief season at the Neuköllner Oper.

On this occasion, we present the parts together for the first time and we will premiere a new epilogue made specially to close the journey of the two protagonists in the underworld.