Semele was first performed at Covent Garden on 10 February 1744 in the manner of an oratorio, without action or scenery. Nevertheless, Handel’s occasional collaborator Charles Jennens regarded it as ‘a bawdy opera’. Congreve’s libretto, based on a story from Ovid, had originally been set as an opera by John Eccles in 1707, but it was ...
Lidio tells her that she has been replaced in his affections by Clori. Egisto advises Lidio that his love for Clori will bring nothing but sorrow. Amor is captured by Semele, Fedra, Didone and Hero, all of whom had been wronged by love, and Amor appeals to Apollo (an ancestor of Egisto) to release him. Act III ...
to bring his daughter back to her senses. She identifies the priest as Dionysus. The god banishes the royal house of Thebes and burns the palace. He raises his mother Semele from the dead and has her transported to Olympus as the goddess Thyone. The new cult is established in Thebes. Personalities | Hans Werner Henze | Modern Era | Opera ...
(1733), Athalia (1733), Alexander’s Feast (1736), Saul (1738), Israel in Egypt (1738), Ode for St Cecilia’s Day (1739), L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (1740), Messiah (1741), Samson (1741), Semele (1743), Belshazzar (1744), Occasional Oratorio (1746), Judas Maccabaeus (1746), Joshua (1748), Solomon (1748), Theodora (1749), Jephtha (1751) Selected sacred works: Dixit Dominus (1707), Utrecht, Te Deum and Jubilate (1713), ...
30 years trying to make a success of Italian opera in London, Handel dedicated the rest of his career to non-staged theatrical works set to English texts, although Semele (1743), Hercules (1744) and even some biblical oratorios are fundamentally operatic in nature. Operas 1705 Almira; Nero (lost) 1707 Florindo e Dafne (lost); Rodrigo 1709 Agrippina 1711 Rinaldo 1712 Il ...
the theatrical limitations of semi-opera. The musician Thomas Clayton and author Joseph Addison’s Rosamund (1707) was a pioneering attempt at English opera but it failed, and John Eccles’ opera Semele (1707), composed to a libretto by William Congreve and later set as an oratorio by Handel, was cancelled by an anxious management before it could be publicly performed. Attempts ...
AUTHORITATIVE
An extensive music information resource, bringing together the talents and expertise of a wide range of editors and musicologists, including Stanley Sadie, Charles Wilson, Paul Du Noyer, Tony Byworth, Bob Allen, Howard Mandel, Cliff Douse, William Schafer, John Wilson...
CURATED
Classical, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Country and more. Flame Tree has been making encyclopaedias and guides about music for over 20 years. Now Flame Tree Pro brings together a huge canon of carefully curated information on genres, styles, artists and instruments. It's a perfect tool for study, and entertaining too, a great companion to our music books.
David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.