On May 14 and 15, Les Épopées and Stéphane Fuget bring Queen Dido back to the Tunis Opera House in her homeland, since, according to Purcell’s opera—based on Virgil’s Aeneid—she was the one who founded the nearby city of Carthage. This new production is distinctive in combining the ensemble’s historically informed performance practice with Middle Eastern music and dance. 
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Bringing Dido and Aeneas back to Tunis, where Carthage once stood and where Dido ruled, is far more than a symbolic gesture for Les Épopées and the team at the Tunis Opera Theatre. This new production brings together Tunisian, Lebanese, and French artists on the same stage to tell a story of love, exile, and loss set in the contemporary Mediterranean, at a time when divisions—fueled by conflicts between the West and the Middle East—have never been more acute. For this project, Stéphane Fuget and Claire Lefilliâtre (co-founders of the ensemble) made two preparatory trips to Tunisia to work on the staging. This production of Dido and Aeneas will be presented for the first time in Tunis on May 14 and 15 before touring major Tunisian archaeological sites during the summer festival season, notably in Carthage and El Jem. The French harpsichordist and conductor reflects on the circumstances surrounding the creation of this new production.
What makes this Tunis production of Purcell’s Dido original?
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