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Purcell was already considered one of London's most distinguished composers when Dido and Aeneas received its debut performance at a ladies boarding school as early as 1680. The opera encompasses a broad range of expressive music, from a high-spirited sailors dance to one of the most touching of all operatic arias, Dido's Lament, When I am laid in earth. Like any great work of art Dido and Aeneas can be enjoyed on a number of levels as an absorbing children's yarn with some great tunes; as an allegorical fantasy on a contemporary political scene; and as a dark, brooding work in the best traditions of English drama. This sparkling miniature, lasting little more than an hour, remains the oldest English opera still regularly performed
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