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The original Purcell opera is based on the story inspired by Virgil’s ancient Latin epic Aeneid. At its heart is a passionate relationship between two monarchs: Dido, Queen of Carthage, and Aeneas, Trojan Prince. Their love is destroyed by the wicked Sorceress, who hates Dido and wishes her ruin. Disguised as Mercury, she deceives Aeneas, convincing him to leave Carthage and abandon Dido in order to realize his fate as a founder of Rome. The heartbroken queen, her pride and spirit shattered, is unable to forgive Aeneas’s betrayal and dies in grief. The choreographer preserved the opera in its entirety, and it is performed live during the dance.

Originally, Morris envisioned Dido and Aeneas as a solo for himself, but shortly after he began working on the piece, he decided to introduce other dancers for the supporting roles and ensembles. Still, in the highly acclaimed original staging, created almost 20 years ago in Brussels during the Mark Morris Dance Group’s residence at the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie, the choreographer danced both leading female roles: Dido and the Sorceress. He continued to perform these roles, which are widely considered the greatest roles of his career, until his retirement as a dancer in 2000.

The essence of Morris’ dance version of the opera is Dido’s inner drama – an emotional struggle of her self-contradicting personality, at once passionate and cruel. By casting the same dancer as Dido and the Sorceress, the choreographer reinvents the original story. His new twist is that the Sorceress embodies the Dido’s dark shadow, her loathing alter-ego. At the end the doomed queen is a victim of her own hatred and self-destruction.

Morris’ production is a fascinating and compelling spectacle where evocative choreography, inspired by ethnic Indian and Indonesian dances, illuminates and transcends the opera’s libretto to a profound effect. The choreographer introduces an amazing movement lexicon, assigning to the certain words (for example, “fate,” “storm,” “wound,” “death”) a distinctive gesture, repeated every time the word is mentioned in the libretto.

Robert Bordo’s stage designs are ascetic but visually compelling. The decorations comprise two white balustrades: a long one located upstage and a short, bench-like one placed in front of the stage in the center. The abstractly painted blue-and-green backdrop evokes a marine paisage. Regardless of gender and roles, all dancers are clad in identical black costumes – long sarongs and sleeveless tops, except Aeneas, who is bare-chested. The stark surroundings and simple, somber-looking attire of the dancers accentuate the tragic essence of the story.

The Morris dancers never disappoint; I couldn’t help but admire the outstanding performance delivered by the entire cast. In the course of this hour-long production, the ensemble of 10 dancers underwent fascinating character transformations. In the first act, as the noble courtiers of Dido’s Kingdom, they lithely moved on tiptoes, eloquently holding their skirts, or were motionlessly positioned on the long balustrade ornately framing the stage as if the figurines on antique Greek bas-reliefs. In the Cave scene, as associates of Sorceress, they indulge in what can be described as a wild vaudeville, and at times their rowdy prances are reminiscent of a club fight. When called by Aeneas to board the ships departing to Italy, the dancer-sailors hopped and stomped their feet with exuberance and vigor, bidding farewell to “nymphs on the shore” “with vows of returning, but never intending to visit the more” in what appears to be the most lighthearted episode of this opera.

Tall and lanky, Bradon McDonald was excellent as Morris’ double-cast Dido-Sorceress though, in my view, his performance as Dido lacked that special feminine softness of movements for which the original Morris dances were so astonishing and captivating to watch. His darkly satirical portrayal of the wild and conniving Sorceress, however, was tremendously effective.

Craig Biesecker capably handled the understated role of Aeneas. The nimble Maile Okamura, as Dido’s sister Belinda, illuminated her character with compassion and humility. Rita Donahue gave a soulful performance as the Second Woman. Her beautifully crafted solo, “oft she visits this lone mountain,” during the Hunting Scene, tingled with elements of traditional Indian dance, was wonderfully expressive and nuanced. The tomboyish and brisk Lauren Grant couldn’t be more suitable for the role of the free-spirited Sailor. Noah Vinson and Elisa Clark were fittingly vulgar and nasty as Witches.

A special mention must go to the fine MMDG Music Ensemble, the singers, and the chorus from the George Mason University Singers. Under a relatively “green” but firm baton of Mark Morris, the musicians and the young vocalists delivered a soulful rendition of the opera. I was truly fascinated by the performance of Julia Van Doren, who sung with beautiful articulation and rich tone in the role of Belinda. The promising mezzo-soprano Jamie Van Eyck was very impressive as Dido and Sorceress, aptly illuminating the dramatic qualities of her two emotionally contrasting roles.

I will never forget the final scene of the dance: Belinda, sitting on the bench and holding Dido’s hand. The queen has chosen her destiny and she knows that her end is near (“Death is now a welcome guest”). With the sublime sounds of her final lament “When I am laid in earth,” she is moving in a slow motion, very softly, barely touching the ground as if it is not the earth she is walking on but the clouds, for she is already in heaven.