Purcell wrote only one full opera, a short work supposedly designed for a girls’ school. The tragic story of Dido and Aeneas, with a libretto by Nahum Tate, has a perfection of its own. Dido’s final lament, before she kills herself, follows the model for such compositions established by Monteverdi eighty years before. Other stage works by Purcell are in the hybrid form now known as semi-opera, combining spoken drama and a musical element that in the concert-hall may be performed apart from its wider dramatic context. ~
FROM https://iclassical.co.uk/purcells-dido-and-aeneas-work-no-79-in-our-collection/

Wikipedia page for Henry Purcell~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Purcell
Henry Purcell on classical.net~ http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/purcell.php