With violinists warming up on "In the Still of the Night," members of the Radcliffe Dance Group practicing in the corners, and a gallery of Bellboys scrambling for seats, the Lowell House Common Room is a bedlam a few minutes before eight these evenings. But when Courtland Canby '37, 1G lays aside his pipe, sheds his coat, and raps for attention the fifty-odd people assembled there get down to the business of rehearsing for Purcell's opera, "Dido and Aeneas."

It's a big job he and the Lowell House Musical Society have undertaken, Canby admits, but he hopes that Wednesday night's production will restore some of Lowell's musical prestige that has slipped away to Leverett, whose Glee Club collaborated with Wellesley in their production of "Alceste," last winter. Not that it's a strictly Lowell affair, for chorus and orchestra are packed with ringors.

The opera was written in 1689 by Purcell and Josiah Priest for production by a girls' school. Hence the preponderance of ballet. "Purcell and Priest were an operatic team like Gershwin and--well like Gershwin," Canby explained.

"The music is stilted, affected, but sincere; that's what we're trying to interpret in the dancing," Virginia Schroeder, dance director, said. The male dancing chorus spent part of yesterday evening learning to jump off a bench gracefully and in unison.

The male leads are handled by John H. Eric '37, 1G, Charles DeL. Ashmore '38, David P. McAllester '38, and Robert C. Cochrane, Jr., '39. Recruited from the Radcliffe Choral Group, the feminine soloists will be Norma Nasmyth '39, Victoria Glaser '40, Barbara R. Miller '40, and Evelyn Stern '39. A small string orchestra has been drawn from several quarters.

There's usually a number of Lowellites watching proceedings, particularly the dance rehearsals. The more pessimistic ones say, "We can't do any work with all that racket going on anyway."