Name: Semele
Start: 2023-08-01T00:00:00.000Z
End: 2023-08-26T00:00:00.000Z
Location: Glyndebourne

Organization

Glyndebourne Festival

Direction d'orchestre

Václav Luks

Mise en scène

Adele Thomas

Décors

Annemarie Woods

Costumes

Hannah Clark

Chorégraphie

Emma Woods

Lumières

Peter Mumford

Direction de choeur

Aidan Oliver

Chanteur

Soprano

Joélle Harvey

Semele

Jennifer Johnston

Juno

Ténor

Stuart Jackson

Jupiter

Samuel Mariño

Iris

Mezzo-soprano

Stephanie Wake-Edwards

Contralto

Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen

Athamas

Basse

Clive Bayley

Cadmus

Somnus

Assistant Director

Rachael Hewer

Oliver Platt

Assistant Conductor

Jakub Kydlíček

Robin Gladwin

Dancer

Jonathan Mewett

Jack Richardson

Rick Fisher

Harriet Waghorn

Orchestra

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Others

The Glyndebourne Chorus

Glyndebourne

anglais

Semele -  (Sémélé)

Lewes

Royaume-Uni

Public

Sémélé

Valide

Semele Händel

Jane Archibald and Benedict Kearns perform 'With fond desiring' from Handel's Semele in the Glyndebourne Organ Room.

A brand new production of Semele, directed by Adele Thomas opens at Glyndebourne Festival 2023. Find out more: https://www.glyndebourne.com/events/s...

In Act II we see Semele and Jupiter at the height of their passion - alone together in Semele’s beautiful new palace. But, while Semele sings evocatively (and even erotically) about her love in her glittering aria ‘With fond desiring’, there’s still an underlying sense of anxiety in the music. Those gasping phrases - ‘panting, fainting’ - may conjure the physical urgency of her wants, but those fretful, circling phrases suggest that she’s not entirely sure of her new lover. With the bassline falling away altogether, voice and violin float, unmoored, in musical space - free and expressive, but also vulnerable.

Semele is engaged, but secretly in love with someone else. Her lover is none other than Jupiter, King of the Gods. When he carries her off his wife Juno devises a scheme that will ensure a swift and brutal end – both to her husband’s infidelity and to Semele herself.

With a plot full of lusty Gods and beautiful mortals, where intrigue and desire take centre-stage, Handel’s Semele combines the drama of Italian opera with the choral splendour and richness of English oratorio. Ovid’s colourful Metamorphoses provides the starting point for a work that scandalised 18th-century audiences, a story of transformations, seductions and illusions that drew new sensuality and ecstasy from the composer.

Olivier Award-winning director Adele Thomas makes her Glyndebourne debut with the festival’s first-ever staging of Semele. Period specialist Václav Luks conducts an exciting young cast.

English

Crédits de représentation (Distribution et équipe de production )

Distribution

Équipage

Ensemble

Coproducteur