Next month Lowell House is planning to present an opera which merits considerable attention. Henry Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas" is without doubt the greatest of English operas and may safely be ranked among the outstanding musical dramas of all time.

Written for performance by the female students of the Great School House at Chelsea in 1675, the work of necessity includes a predominance of women's roles. These will be filled in the coming performance by members of the Radcliffe Choral Society, who promise to be more than capable. Both they and the male leads will be aided in their interpretation by a short period of work on Purcell's "King Arthur" under Mlle. Nadia Boulanger.

The beauties of this work are not generally known. Despite a mediocre libretto by Nahum Tate (poet-laureate of England at the time) Purcell has a real sense of dramatic pace, and his themes admirably express the varying moods of his characters.

Most famous of the arias in "Dido and Aeneas" is that sung by Dido just before she dies: "When I Am Laid in Earth." But easily as worthy of fame is the closing chorus of the work, which we feel to be one of the peaks of choral writing.

In this, his only full-fledged opera, Purcell bases his texture on the Venetian School, and more especially on Lully. He exhibits a strong bent to the use of a basso ostenato, basing his melodic line on the structure of his bass part.

A prolific writer, Purcell wrote no fewer than fifty dramatic works, chiefly incidental music for plays. Among these compositions is one called the "Faery Queen," which was intended as accompaniment to Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream."

Many music students are surprised that Purcell did not exert any considerable influence on his contemporaries and immediate successors. They are liable to draw the conclusion that succeeding generations relegated Purcell to the background because they could find no merit in his music.

But this is hardly fair. We must remember that this composer was writing for the pleasure of the court, and the pleasure of the court is fickle. Thus a work would be performed, enjoyed, laid aside, and in the wild search for something novel would be completely forgotten. Thus the general public got no opportunity to judge of the merit of Purcell's compositions.

To anyone who attends the performance of "Dido and Aeneas" we promise an enjoyable experience.