“Opulent” and “majestic” are words frequently mentioned when people hear mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe sing. Since winning the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 1994, she has been at the peak of her trade on opera and concert stages.

Choreographed in 1989, Dido and Aeneas has an antique patina thanks to Virgil's epic story and Henry Purcell's 1689 opera, performed live at the Harris Theater by the MMDG Music Ensemble and conducted by Morris himself.

Delight defines Mark Morris' "Dido and Aeneas." Delight in sex, in music, in pathos, in mischief and even evil. Delight despite the ancient tragic story of love betrayed, and despite the historic and political trappings the story has accumulated over the centuries. Running for the second time in Chicago, through Wednesday at the Harris, Morris' hourlong "Dido and Aeneas" carries some major baggage. Choreographed in 1989 for Brussels' Theatre Royal de la Monnaie, it's based in Virgil's "Aeneid," which emphasizes fate, the gods, the destined history of Rome. Henry Purcell's 1689 opera, set to Nahum Tate's libretto, provides not only the music and a political message about England's ascendancy but a different tack on the characters: Dido becomes stronger than Aeneas, and witches, not gods, direct the action.

The baroque opera “Dido and Aeneas” comes at 8 p.m. to Elliott Hall this Saturday, brought to life through vocalists, dancers and a live chamber orchestra. The Mark Morris Dance Group will discuss the ins and outs of the aesthetics in a pre-show talk at 7 p.m. in the Mechanical Engineering Building, Room 1103. Below, Laurel Lynch, lead performer playing dual roles, Dido and the Sorceress, answers questions to give you a sense of what you’ll be able to take away from the show and pre-show.

Next week, the Mostly Mozart Festival revives Mark Morris’s acclaimed production of the Purcell opera Dido and Aeneas, which had its Brussels premiere in 1989. At the center of the work are Dido (the Queen of Carthage) and the Sorceress (whose scheming causes Dido’s downfall). In the work’s early years, both roles were danced Morris. Now both are performed by Amber Star Merkens, who recently spoke to me about her beginnings in dance and how it feels to step into her boss’s most famous role.

The Mark Morris Dance Group on April 2 will bring Henry Purcell's famous baroque opera "Dido and Aeneas" to life with a live chamber orchestra, vocalists and dancers under the baton of choreographer Mark Morris at Elliott Hall of Music.

A dark and dramatic melding of modern dance and baroque choral music, Morris’s interpretation of English composer Henry Purcell’s 1689 opera, itself based on a tragic love story by the Roman poet Virgil, resonates with raw emotion. The production debuted in 1989 with Artistic Director Morris dancing the lead role of Dido/Sorceress alongside his company. Nearly three decades and a 2008 visit to The Barclay later, “Dido and Aeneas” remains as ageless as it is unforgettable.

The musician who watches this production appreciates the musicality of Morris’ choreography, the way it mirrors and even analyzes Purcell’s score. The movements become a physical analogy of the notes in the ether, expressing the rhythm, the phrasing and, at times, the harmony. And since Purcell’s music is busy expressing the libretto’s meanings and emotions, we get a tightly knit, multidisciplinary unit (not a counterpoint) of narrative and poetic feeling – words, music, dance.

Mark Morris' dance opera Dido and Aeneas is a tour de force of late 20th century artistic storytelling, a partial retelling of Virgil's 2,000-year-old epic poem "Aeneid" using Henry Purcell's 1689 musical composition. It is a riveting assemblage, one that smashesa nd rewrites stylistic boundaries.

It was inspired of Tanglewood to invite the choreographer-director Mark Morris here to bring his acclaimed 1989 “Dido and Aeneas” and to present his first staging of “Curlew River” (1964). Wednesday’s premiere was one of only two performances. May this pairing recur.

All it took to condemn one of the greatest operas ever written to three centuries in shadows were a bare dozen words—“Perform'd at Mr. Josias Priest's Boarding-School at Chelsey. By Young Gentlewomen.”

And the worst of it? It wasn’t even true.

In fact Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas was probably written for performance before the King and Queen of England. But those words, at the head of the libretto published in 1689, have cast such a pall of dainty respectability, of amateur night shenanigans over the work that most listeners have neglected the evidence of their own ears. Dido has been mostly revived professionally when a mezzo-soprano combining musical insight with box-office clout—a Kirsten Flagstad, a Josephine Baker—has insisted on performing it. Paradoxically, Mark Morris's danced version of the piece has probably done more to establish Dido in the repertory than those artists did. 

An essay by Sophia Preston

Just a few minutes into Mark Morris’s 1989 dance to Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas it is clear that at least some of the movement “represents” the words of the libretto. Whether by looking apt (shaking hands in the air to “shake”), or through repetition (hands held out in an Indian dance mudra every time the word “fate” is heard), associations build up between gestures and words, creating a lexicon of gestural signs. This “re-presentation” of the libretto through gestures might be viewed as a redundant doubling of the words, but my contention is that, on the contrary, Morris exploits the transparency of this strategy to sophisticated and moving effect.

Sara Hayden for The Daily Californian

Like the two-dimensional figures painted on a Grecian urn, Mark Morris Dance Group contorted their bodies into fierce angles last weekend; the stage lost its depth and gained the boldness of an urn’s lines and shattered shapes. Ancient themes punctuated the space the way purposefully painted motifs mark a piece of pottery. In MMDG’s rendition of the tale “Dido and Aeneas,” presented by Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall, antiquated influence is cobbled together with wholly contemporary presentation.

Allan Ulrich for SFGate

When you write about Stephanie Blythe and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra participating in a performance by the Mark Morris Dance Group, you must choose your verbs with special care. American mezzo-soprano Blythe, one of the vocal wonders of our age, and San Francisco's renowned period instrument band do not, by virtue of their artistic gifts, accompany a dance company. No: They collaborate.

Rita Felciano for San Francisco Bay Guardian

What makes watching the Mark Morris Dance Group's Dido and Aeneas such a satisfying — and ultimately profound — experience? It's really simple: give a story of love and war to a poet, who creates a rhythmically and imagistically suggestive libretto, which then gets into the hands of a genius composer, and finally ends up with Mark Morris, who just happens to be a great choreographer and company director. That's it.

Cindy Warner for San Francisco Theater Examiner

Mark Morris conducted the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and soprano Stephanie Blythe last night in his conducting debut, with Amber Star Merkens and Domingo Estrada Jr. dancing the title roles in Morris’ quirky Dido & Aeneas. Morris assigns a singer to each dancer, the singers standing on platforms in the orchestra pit with PBO, the singers’ heads showing so their voices project

Jenniver Modenessi for Mercury News

A pair of lovers. An evil sorceress. A doomed affair. The plot of Henry Purcell's 1689 opera "Dido and Aeneas" is classic stuff.

Janos Gereben for The San Francisco Examiner

Once the famed bad boy of dance, Mark Morris is now known as the grand old man of the genre — the characterization having more to do with the nature of his art, rather than his age, 55. 

Allan Ulrich for SFGate