HANDEL : SEMELE

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 14th of October 2012 at 3.03 - 6 pm

HANDEL: Semele, an opera in three acts
Jupiter.......................... William Burden
Cadmus........................ Steven Humes
Semele......................... Jane Archibald
Athamas....................... Anthony Roth Costanzo
Ino/Juno....................... Allyson McHardy
Somnus........................ Steven Humes
Iris................................ Katherine Whyte
Canadian Opera Company Chorus & Orch/Rinaldo Alessandrini (recorded in the Canadian Opera Company Opera House, in the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, Toronto by CBC)

PRELUDE 
LIBRETTO (English!) (William Congreve)
EXCERPT (Cecilia!) My self I shall adore
EXCERPT (Bartoli!) I'll take no less

Semele (Se-me-le, not Smeel), daughter of Kadmos (Cadmus) King of Thebes (in Greece, not Egypt), was the mortal woman who dallied with Zeus (Jupiter or Giove, when you are in Rome doing as the Romans do) but she was playing with fire: the fiery jealousy of Hera (Juno) the top-god's consort, and the blazing glory of the god of lightning, and she was burnt up in it; but she gives birth to Bacchus (Dionysos). How?! He rises from her ashes.
    It is an Italian-style opera, but that musical form had gone out of fashion in the 1740s, and Handel had to pass it off as an English oratorio in 1744; but the public were not fooled; there are no quotations from the Bible in it, as in Messiah (1741) and Samson (1743); it is ancient Greek myth!
    We all know one song in it, the air (aria) he sings to her: "Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade; trees where you sit, shall crowd into a shade; where'er you tread, the blushing flow'rs shall rise; and all things flourish where'er you turn your eyes."
    Of course, when she is all burnt up, she will just be fertilizer for the flora.
    The record I have features Kathleen Battle and Marilyn Horne (stand clear, here comes another blast of exclamation marks)!!!