‘Dido’ director says opera should resonate with POST-COVID crowds
As director of “Dido and Aeneas,” Elkhanah Pulitzer says it’s an appropriate story for Opera San Jose’s return to live performance after the pandemic shutdown. Purcell’s 1689 opera is running through Nov. 28 at the California Theatre in downtown San Jose.
“Even though it’s a tragedy, it’s also about seeking solace and hope,” she says of the opera, based on a section of Virgil’s “Aeneid.” “My hope is that it creates a space for those who are feeling isolated…because we’re not alone.”
Pulitzer recalls feeling alone at the beginning of her directing career, when there weren’t many women helming stage productions.
“Coming up in the world of theater and opera when I was younger, I was looking for female mentors,” she says. “There weren’t many.
“Add to that those who were doing things that were aesthetically interesting and pushing the envelope, and that number dwindled even further.”
Opera San Jose is adding to those numbers, as all productions in its current season are being directed by women.
“There are a lot more female stage directors now, and that’s exciting,” Pulitzer says. “I look forward to the day when it’s not even a question.”
Making sure a variety of voices are heard on stage has long been important to Pulitzer, who studied under Anne Bogart at Columbia University. Bogart is coartistic director of the Saratoga International Theater Institute, a New York theater company dedicated to multicultural representation on stage.
Pulitzer, who has directed operas for numerous companies on both the West and East coasts, says social justice movements such as #metoo and Black Lives Matter have helped the theatrical world push forward in efforts to keep audiences engaged.
“We’re acknowledging that time passes and styles change,” she says. “If we want to be relevant, we have to be aware of that.”
Applying this awareness to opera, Pulitzer adds, can be “an interesting process.”
“What’s amazing about Baroque opera, and especially ‘Dido and Aeneas,’ is that there’s no final score available, so we got to look at the history of the performance of the piece.”
While Purcell ostensibly wrote the work for a prestigious girls’ school, Pulitzer says that version of the opera’s history has been called into question.
“It’s not codified in any formal way; it’s really exciting,” she adds. “There are all these historical layers to put on it.”
For Opera San Jose’s production, Pulitzer is focusing on Dido, the queen of Carthage, who is driven by outside forces to take her own life.
“Its her story; it’s not ‘The Aeneid,’” says the director. “It’s interesting and complex because she dies. We’re at a different time in history in terms of the valor associated with suicide.”
Pulitzer says the nature of Dido’s relationship to Aeneas is also interesting and complex.
“They’re both really refugees,” she adds. “There’s a resonance there.”
Given that none of this subtext is expressed in the libretto, Pulitzer says, audiences have to rely on visual clues to pick up on it. To that end, she adds, “The design celebrates the beauty of the music but constantly reminds us of the pressures of court.”
“Dido and Aeneas” runs through Nov. 28 at the California Theatre, 345 S. First St., San Jose. Tickets are $55-$195 at operasj.org or 408-437-4450.