The adventures of Miss Despina

The studio is bathed in morning light. The air is warm and humid - we open the windows and the mixed sounds of birdsong and a jazz quintet enter the room. The director’s eyes are wide with enthusiasm as he guides us through the scene. The first scene we are blocking, the confrontation between Dido and Aeneas. We sing through the first few lines. Aeneas has been summoned away from Carthage, by a spirit disguised as a messenger of the gods. He wonders how to break the news to Dido.

Him: What shall lost Aeneas do? How, Royal fair, shall I impart the Gods’ decree and tell you we must part?

Her: Thus on the fatal banks of Nile weeps the deceitful crocodile. Thus hypocrites that murder act make Heaven and Gods the authors of the fact. 

"So Aeneas comes on and sings - what shall lost Aeneas do? He’s basically saying, I’ve tried everything, what more do you want from me? You sit and stare straight ahead, don’t move, just ignore him. When you say the word hypocrite, just give him a really venemous look, then turn back to the audience."

Aeneas comes towards Dido, fire in his eyes.

By all that’s good -

She jumps up in anger, startling him, and confronts him full in the face: 

By all that’s good? No more! All that’s good you have foreswore. To your promis’d empire fly, and let forsaken Dido die.

She walks away from him, but he takes her hand. As he sings, she is torn between her feelings of love for him, and her insecurities about being with him, and whether it is for the right reasons. She knows that she loves him so much that if he were to leave her, she would surely die. She is terrified of loving. Yet a union with him would secure the future for herself and her empire…

In spite of Jove’s command I’ll stay, offend the gods and love obey.

The director is laughing with his recognition of Dido, but his sense of frustration is palpable. "He wants to love her, to defy the gods for her but she just won’t let him. So self-destructive! So just shake off his hand and cross the stage away from him."

No, faithless man, thy course pursue, I’m now resolved as well as you. No repentance shall reclaim the injur’d Dido’s slighted flame, for ’tis enough whate’r you now decree, that you had once a thought of leaving me.

"He sits with his head in his hands, still trying to get through to her. Just the thought of leaving her is a crime that makes him unworthy of her - she is so terrified of him leaving that she is doing her best to drive him away!"

Him: Let Jove say what he will, I’ll stay!

Her: Away, away!

He tries to convince her that he will stay and love her, but she cannot bear to listen, and, all her former poise and composture gone, she darts around her chambers like a caged animal, covering her ears, screaming no, no! away, away! as he tells her that he will stay and obey love rather than the gods. Finally she collapses in her throne singing to death I’ll fly if longer you delay - away, away!

We played with this scene for about an hour, until finally, we ran it, and decided just for kicks to run into the next scene. The director played for us and was watching over the piano. We ran the scene until the part where the terrified and exhaused Dido collapses into her throne. Aeneas rounded on me and pinned me to the back of the throne, and I looked into his beautiful face, and screamed: Away, away! I turned my face sharply away from him, and felt his gesture of resignation as he left. He had tried everything to love Dido, but she had rejected him and destroyed herself in the process. I stared after him, at the empty space where he had been, and felt all the energy leave my body as I tried to support myself on my throne. I fixed my eyes on the middle-distance and sang very quietly and darkly:

But death, alas, I cannot shun. Death must come when he is gone.

The director seemed happy with our instincts.

"Oh D, you have to do it just like that in the performance!"