San Francisco Performances will present five-time Grammy Award winner Dawn Upshaw, along with the Brentano String Quartet, in “Dido Reimagined: A Response to Purcell’s Lament.”

The program, scheduled for Jan. 12, 2023 at the Herbst Theatre, will feature numerous English works, including Purcell’s famed lament from “Dido and Aeneas.” The second half will showcase a new work composed by Pulitzer Prize winner Melinda Wagner with libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann that shines a different light on Dido’s fate.

“Soprano Dawn Upshaw continues to find exceptional projects and means of artistic reinvention. In partnership with the insightful members of the Brentano String Quartet, they bring new life and context to Henry Purcell’s timeless music, along with the story of Dido and Aeneas. In this era of reassessment and re-evaluation, ‘Dido Reimagined’ shines a contemporary light on a powerful, age-old character, a historical figure who became myth, shifting shape and meaning through the ages,” said SFP President Melanie Smith in an official press statement.

Upshaw and the Brentano String Quartet previously performed the program at the 92Y in New York City back on April 3, 2022.