Monteverdi String Band, in collaboration with the Roman River Festival, has created a version of the Dido and Aeneas story under the title of 'Wandering Prince, Unhappy Queen', in which Henry Purcell’s music will be intertwined with readings from Virgil and other authors alongside art songs and broadside ballads, with the aim of giving the audience the backstory and context for the actions depicted in Nahum Tate’s pithy but incomplete libretto. Virgil’s Aeneid, in which the story is told in greatest detail, was much better known to Purcell’s audience than to today’s, so by making explicit those parts of the story which would have been implicitly understood in the 17th century, we hope to give our listeners a fresh, vivid, and poignant experience. Photo credit: Robert Piwko