(Image taken from the Staatsoper website)

This was the first time that I saw Dido and Aeneas on stage. A couple of years ago I was listening to a recording of this piece quite often and I always wondered how it would work out on stage. There is a lot of reflection but very little action and so the difficulty in staging the opera is always: what should happen on stage while the characters or the choir are singing?

In her staging at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Sasha Waltz has found a breathtaking solution to this problem. Choir and dance company intermingle and are almost constantly on stage where they allegorize the emotions of characters. The visual effect is so satisfying that one does not mind the scantiness of the stage design (the pool in the above picture appears in the prologue). Pureness, presence, emotionality and exceptional musicianship make this the best performance I have seen at the Staatsoper over the last one and a half years.

There is one more performance tonight; go get a ticket and see for yourself.