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Dido and Aeneas

Craig was presented with special problems in devising the staging of Dido and Aeneas. It was to be performed at the Hampstead Conservatoire, where the hall was designed for concert performances by singers and orchestra, with no real wings and a rectangular stage consisting of fixed platforms of different heights. Craig made a virtue out of necessity and worked the platforms into his visual scheme. While alluding to classical antiquity (the era in which the story is set), the scenery was kept to a minimum which had the effect of highlighting the characters themselves. A single cloth curtain backdrop and a sky cloth, both coloured in a deep violet/indigo, formed the background for all the scenes, with changes in atmosphere effected by the lighting and the shaping of the curtain (rolled down into a wave shape for the sailors' scene in Act 3). Craig eliminated the traditional footlights and illuminated the stage from the sides and above, hiding the lights behind a proscenium arch which he constructed and a scrim for the sky's lighting. The costumes, like the scenery alluded to classical antiquity, but were kept very simple with symbolic touches. Dido's women were draped in robes entwined with roses while Aeneas' men carried red and gold cornucopias and later, olive branches and anchors.