Handel: Semele (1998)

The genre of Semele has always been somewhat ambiguous. Handel used an opera libretto by William Congreve for his text, but at its premiere he presented it as an oratorio. Its secular, dramatic story is certainly operatic, but its music includes stylistic elements of both Handel's English sacred oratorios and his Italian operas, so it's understandable why the original audiences didn't easily embrace the work, since it failed to fully satisfy the preferences of devotees of either genre. Audiences today aren't likely to be ... Read More

The genre of Semele has always been somewhat ambiguous. Handel used an opera libretto by William Congreve for his text, but at its premiere he presented it as an oratorio. Its secular, dramatic story is certainly operatic, but its music includes stylistic elements of both Handel's English sacred oratorios and his Italian operas, so it's understandable why the original audiences didn't easily embrace the work, since it failed to fully satisfy the preferences of devotees of either genre. Audiences today aren't likely to be troubled by that issue, but more problematic are Congreve's distractingly mannered text and the morally queasy plot. (Semele, an emotionally complex but appealing mortal character, is the lover of Jupiter. Juno, Jupiter's jealous wife, conspires to have Semele painfully incinerated, after which she is immediately forgotten, and the opera ends in a scene of rejoicing at her sister Ino's wedding.) Handel has created much attractive, varied, and expressive music for the score, which... Read Less