Semele

Semele reveals Handel’s sensual side and his affinity for strong female characters. It’s an opera, but not as we know it. Written in English, it was intended for concert performance at Covent Garden, London, in 1744, alongside Handel’s oratorios. He compensated for the lack of stage action with plenty of pictorial effects (especially in the orchestra), numerous orchestrally accompanied recitatives for the main characters, and a succession of dramatic choruses. The engaging story revolves around the god Jupiter’s love for the young mortal Semele (daughter of the King of Thebes) and her demise when the god grants her request to reveal himself in his natural form. The genuine love between Jupiter and Semele is reflected in some of Handel’s most richly sensual music, which makes the tragedy of Semele’s death more painful, and Juno’s jealousy of her husband’s betrayal (and her hand in Semele’s destruction) all the more believable. The perceived immorality of the plot was one reason why the work was relatively unsuccessful, though many arias became independently famous. Jupiter’s “Where’er You Walk” evokes the pastoral landscape around Semele with a simple English tunefulness. Handel’s arias for the hedonistic Semele herself range from the intimate “O Sleep, Why Dost Thou Leave Me?” to the virtuoso showpiece “The Morning Lark to Mine Accords His Note”, with its elaborate evocation of birdsong.