Organization

Glyndebourne Festival

Conductor

Václav Luks

Stage director

Adele Thomas

Set designer

Annemarie Woods

Costume designer

Hannah Clark

Choreographer

Emma Woods

Lighting designer

Peter Mumford

Chorus master

Aidan Oliver

Singer

Soprano

Joélle Harvey

Semele

Jennifer Johnston

Juno

Tenor

Stuart Jackson

Jupiter

Samuel Mariño

Iris

Mezzo-soprano

Stephanie Wake-Edwards

Contralto

Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen

Athamas

Bass

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

English

Lewes

United Kingdom

Public

Approved

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.

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew

Ensemble

Co-Producer