Handel’s Semele (1744) was met with controversy at its premiere for presenting secular opera in the guise of sacred oratorio. The mortal Semele dares to love Jupiter, king of the gods, despite her betrothal to prince Athamas. Spirited away by the god, she begins to revel in celestial pleasures. Meanwhile, Juno (matriarch of the gods and Jupiter’s wife) boils in fury and proceeds to conspire with Somnus (sleep himself) and the likeness of Semele’s own sister Ino to bring about Semele’s downfall. Naturally, the affair brings consequences manifesting in jealousy, vanity, ambition, yearning, and tragedy — an ostensible cautionary tale on hubris. Waterperry Opera Festival’s August staging at Opera Holland Park rejuvenates Handel’s work with a few key reimaginings, its eleven-member cast executing their roles with intimacy and clarity.
Hilary Cronin as Semele is a dynamic presence — vain, ambitious, restless. While the giddy “Endless pleasure, endless love” is wonderfully done, “With fond desiring” and “I ever am granting” arguably shows the heights of Cronin’s ability to express Semele’s humanity. Declaring “I’ll take no less than all in full excess!”, Cronin’s Semele is decidedly not the expected naïve ingenue. Far from staying happily ensconced in her lover’s palace, Semele expresses mounting frustration, insecurity, and hunger for immortality, a state of being she believes is well within her grasp and scope of understanding but is destined to never attain.
Michael Lafferty’s Jupiter is absolutely on par with Semele in terms of conveying emotionality, as he by turns commands and wheedles Semele to stay happy. Admittedly, the love scenes lack some expected tenderness; “Lay your doubts and fears aside, And for joys alone provide” only adds to a sense of foreboding. As opposed Lafferty’s declarations based on aggression — “And thou, Olympus, shake, in witness to the oath I take!”— are most well-executed (no background thunder necessary), underlining the god’s volatility and the imbalance in their relationship.
Nathan Mercieca convinces as a weedy prince (a foil to Lafferty’s stockiness and brusque charisma) and embodies Athamas’s wavering feelings towards the two sisters, as well as add a touch of comic vulnerability. Sarah Winn complements his uncertainty with her winning earnestness as Ino, a constant for Athamas that Semele cannot be. Sophie Goldrick embodies Juno’s deception with an assured dominance in line with modern sensibilities, effectively doing away with the “crazy girlfriend” portrayal often attributed to Juno in popular culture.
In Handel’s original production, the mezzo-soprano Esther Young was cast to play Juno and Ino throughout, as the change in one actress would establish contrast between Ino’s sincerity and Juno’s deceptiveness. Instead, this production sees Juno control and possess the body of Ino, challenging Sarah Winn to embody Juno in one pivotal scene. Sarah Winn rises superbly to the challenge. Hence, her mechanical gestures while puppeteered by the goddess are genuinely unsettling, perhaps more so than what Handel had intended. The viewer thus “alternately is thaw’d and chill’d”.
Jen Gregory’s costumery offers a kind of tongue-in-cheek interpretation of otherworldliness, best encapsulated by the fluorescent green sleeping bag which Masimba Ushe dons as Somnus (who is an utter delight). While mortals are dressed in austere greys and gods in brightly-painted ensembles, all costumery used is decidedly modern. Paint is the only differentiator, thus becoming a metaphor for pleasure and divinity, with Semele revelling in its excess.
Semele’s ultimate fiery demise (apologies for the spoiler) is swiftly replaced by Apollo’s announcement of her son’s survival. All other quandaries which have been developing throughout the opera are quickly resolved or set aside as the promise of a new lifee assuages the cast into a happy ending. If it is inevitable that love is to disappear as quickly as it appeared — due to Semele’s hubris, Jupiter’s penchant for trophy-hunting, or the chasm between human and divine nature — then she is in danger of forming part of this immutable historic pattern as a sacrifice for the birth of a new god (Bacchus).
Female characters in opera often embody emotional excess only to be punished for it. This production acknowledges this existing reality but offers its own stance, embracing that Semele is erotic, ambitious, mercurial. It does an excellent job of de-sanitising emotion. As summer gave way to autumn, viewers in attendance may remember Waterperry Opera Festival’s Semele as a tribute to the inexorable weight of human emotion and the beauty of striving for more than we can possess.
Composer: George Frideric Handel
Libretto: William Congreve
Director: Rebecca Meltzer
Conductor: Bertie Baigent
Cast includes: Hilary Cronin, Michael Lafferty, Sophie Goldrick, Sarah Winn, Nathan Mercieca, Masimba Ushe
Running time: 2h 45m including a 30-minute interval
Photo credit: Jennifer Hawthorn