On May 15th at the Irvine Barclay Theatre in Irvine, CA, the top of Mark Morris’ head could be seen from the orchestra pit, his baton leading members of the Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra and the Bob Cole Chamber Choir. Nahum Tate’s libretto of Henry Purcell’s 1689 opera, Dido and Aeneas, formed the script for Morris’ seminal operatic work of the same name. At first, a choreographer stepping into the pit to conduct his music seemed like an act of self-indulgence. I’ve read about Morris’ personal love for the music he employs, but perhaps his background in dance wrongly obscured my ability to perceive his other talents. Of course, after you’ve seen how musical his choreography is, you begin to understand how well he must know the music, and Morris has been conducting the work since 2008, leaving only three performance series, in 2006 and 2007, in which he did not appear either onstage or at the conductor’s podium. Back up to 1989, and you have Morris in the dual role he conceived for himself: both as Dido, Queen of Carthage, and the evil Sorceress who plots the queen’s demise. The dance, which is nearly as old as I am, has almost […]
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