It was probably in 1684-85, a year or two after the first performance of John Blow’s Venus and Adonis which was clearly his model, that Purcell composed Dido and Aeneas, now recognised as one of the great monuments of opera. The sudden death of Charles II, for whose court it was commissioned, may have meant it was not actually produced until the performance given in a girls’ school in Chelsea in 1689, long thought to have been the occasion for which it was written. The skilful construction of Dido and Aeneas, with that rich mixture of comic and tragic elements so characteristic of 17th century English theatre, perfectly illustrates Purcell’s extraordinary dramatic sense.
