Synopsis

ACT I. After ten years of siege by the Greeks, the Trojans rejoice at the prospect of peace. They marvel at the gigantic wooden horse the Greeks left behind as an offering to Pallas Athena. King Priam's daughter Cassandra, a prophetess, looks for the significance behind the Greeks' disappearance. In a moment of revelation, she saw her brother Hector's ghost on the ramparts and has tried unsuccessfully to warn her father and Coroebus, her fiancé, of further calamities. When Coroebus begs her to join the celebrations, she urges him to flee the city, because she foresees death for both of them. Aeneas, leader of the Trojan army, enters with a group offering thanks to the gods. A somber note is introduced when Andromaque, Hector's widow, brings her son Astyanax to King Priam and Queen Hecuba. Aeneas reports that the priest Laocoön, suspecting the wooden horse to be some kind of a trick, threw his spear at it and urged the crowd to set fire to it, whereupon two sea serpents devoured him. Aeneas proposes they make amends to Athena by bringing the horse into the city as a holy object. As the Trojan march sounds in the distance and the horse is hauled closer, Cassandra realizes it bears disaster.

ACT II. Aeneas, asleep in his room, is visited by the ghost of Hector, who tells him to escape, since his destiny is to found an empire that someday will rule the world. As the ghost disappears, Aeneas's friend Panthée rushes in, wounded, to report that Greek soldiers emerged from the horse and are devastating Troy. Aeneas hastens to lead the defense forces.

In the king's palace, Trojan women pray for deliverance from the invaders. Cassandra foretells that Aeneas and some of the Trojans will escape to Italy to build Rome - a new Troy. Coroebus is dead, and Cassandra prepares for her own death, asking the women whether they will submit to rape and enslavement. Some are afraid of death; driving these away, the others take up their lyres and repeat their vow to die free. Greek soldiers, entering in search of state treasure, are aghast at the sight of the women's mass suicide. Aeneas and his men have escaped with the treasure.

ACT III. In a gallery of the palace of Dido, Queen of Carthage, her subjects hail her with an anthem. She reminds them that in only seven years, since they had to flee from Tyre, they have built a flourishing new kingdom. Her sister, Anna, assures Dido, who is a widow, that one day she will be able to love again. When Iopas, the court poet, announces visitors who have narrowly escaped shipwreck in a recent storm, Dido welcomes them. They are the remnants of the Trojan army, asking a few days' hospitality en route to Italy and offering Dido what is left of their treasure. When word reaches Dido that the Numidian ruler, Iarbas, is about to attack Carthage because she refused his offer of marriage, Aeneas steps from among the sailors' ranks, identifies himself and offers to fight alongside the Carthaginians. Dido accepts, and Aeneas rallies his forces to repel the invader, entrusting his son, Ascanius, to the queen's care.

ACT IV. Orchestral interlude: Royal Hunt and Storm. Some days later in a forest, naiads, playing in a stream, hide as hunters approach. A storm breaks, and Dido and Aeneas seek shelter in a cave. Nymphs, satyrs and fauns dance during the storm and disappear when it passes.

Evening has fallen in Dido's gardens by the sea. Anna asks Narbal, the queen's adviser, why he seems worried, now that the Numidians have been defeated. He replies that since Dido fell in love with Aeneas, she has been neglecting her duties, and that Aeneas's destiny is to go on to Italy - no good can come of the romance. Narbal is afraid that in extending hospitality to the strangers, Carthage has invited its own doom. Dido enters with Aeneas and asks him to tell her more about Troy's last days. When he says that Andromaque, Hector's widow, at length succumbed to love and married Pyrrhus, one of the enemy, Dido sees a parallel to her own situation. She and Aeneas rhapsodize about their love, but at length the god Mercury appears in the moonlight and reminds Aeneas of his destination - Italy.

ACT V. By the shore at night, with the Trojan ships moored near at hand, Hylas, a young sailor, sings a homesick ballad and falls asleep. Panthée tells other Trojan leaders their delay is burdensome: daily omens and apparitions remind them of the gods' and the dead Hector's impatience with their failure to move on. Determined to leave the next day, they retire to their tents as two sentries pass, making way for Aeneas, who struggles to banish misgivings and do what he must. As he resolves to see Dido one more time, the ghosts of Priam, Hector, Coroebus and Cassandra appear, pressing their demands. Forced to give up Dido, Aeneas wakens the Trojans and tells them to set sail before sunrise. Dido finds him, however, and rages at his desertion. Though he protests that he loves her, she curses him. As she storms off, the distraught Aeneas boards his vessel. In Dido's palace, as dawn breaks, the queen asks her sister to go to Aeneas. Now that her anger is spent, she will try to persuade him to stay a few more days, but the Trojan ships are sighted already on their way out to sea. Dido laments that she did not foresee Aeneas's treachery and burn his fleet. Instead, she will burn his gifts and trophies; she orders a pyre built.

In the queen's gardens by the sea, a pyre has been set up, with relics of Aeneas, including the nuptial couch. Priests pray for the peace of Dido's heart, while Anna and Narbal curse Aeneas's venture to Italy. Dido predicts that her fate will be remembered, along with Aeneas's infamy: a future Carthaginian general, Hannibal, will avenge her against Italy one day. Seizing Aeneas's sword, she stabs herself and falls back on the couch. With her dying breath, Dido tells the shocked bystanders that fate is against Carthage: it will be destroyed, and Rome will rule eternal. Turning their backs on a vision of the Roman capitol, the survivors pronounce undying hatred on Aeneas and his descendants.

Courtesy of Opera News

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