Love’s labor lost

Mark Morris Dance Group performs ‘Dido and Aeneas’

Choreographer Mark Morris has long been hailed as much for his ear as for his way of whipping up arresting movement. And whether inhabiting Handel or Lou Harrison, he’s manifested a seemingly unerring ability to build dances that complement a score without being slavishly submissive to every note. This week, he brings one of his most renowned works, a rendition of Henry Purcell’s opera “Dido and Aeneas,” to the Harris Theater.

Morris’ dance background is as varied as his taste in music. Flamenco, Balkan folk dance and gigs with Lar Lubovitch, Laura Dean and Eliot Feld all figured in his background before he launched a small ensemble of his own in 1980. He was something of an odd-man-out in that post-modern period: Although he could work pedestrian movement as well as anyone, he wasn’t averse to theatricality. As he once admitted: “I love ornament; I love a good swoon.”

Opera, which rarely traffics in the subtle, is a prime outlet for that penchant. Drawn from Virgil’s “Aeneid,” the Purcell piece — a milestone of the Baroque — tells the tale of Dido, the widowed queen of Carthage who falls hard for the Trojan Prince Aeneas, a love cruelly crushed by the heartless Sorceress. Morris debuted his version of the tale in 1989, performing the two female leads himself. “I wanted a big, tragic role to dance,” he relates. “As we know, the history of theater, opera and dance is packed with cross-sexual portrayals.”

At 59, Morris isn’t onstage much these days, but that doesn’t mean he’s stuck in the studio. In 2006, he added conductor to his resume, wielding the baton for the Mark Morris Dance Group at a number of venues, including Lincoln Center and Tanglewood Music Center. He’ll be in the pit at Harris, too. “I have always worked very closely with the musicians, conductors and sometimes composers with whom I collaborate,” says Morris, who counts Jan Glover, the director of Chicago’s Music of the Baroque, among those who’ve helped him master the art. “It seemed a natural progression for me to take up the responsibility of conducting the music for my shows. It is not as easy as you might think — scary, fun and satisfying.”