Problem piece

Saturday, 4th December 2004

Simultaneously at the Coliseum, ENO has scored its first unequivocal triumph of the season with the first revival of Robert Carsen’s production of Semele. Both London opera houses have winning productions of Handel’s highly pleasurable warning about the perils of hedonism. The Royal Opera’s is 3-D Watteau, all billowing satin and naughty glimpses. At the Coliseum Carolyn Sampson, the marvellous Semele, allows us only one naughty glimpse, a full posterior view, and it is her only mistake of the evening. Otherwise, to look at, to hear, and to see act she is a sheer delight, and reaches peaks of virtuosity which precisely delineate Semele’s self-intoxication. If I can’t feel so enthusiastic about either of her suitors — yet enjoyed myself so much — it only shows how completely Handel focuses on his heroine.

Robin Blaze’s Athamas is weedy beyond the call of counter-tenordom, while Ian Bostridge is simply miscast as Jupiter. However humanly disguised the father of the gods may be, he must still be impressive, and Bostridge doesn’t seem much of an improvement in powerful virility on Blaze: he croons his way through ‘Where’er you walk’ with soporific rather than seductive effect, and in general seems no different from his usual lank self. Despite which the balance in the piece between mischief, eroticism and stunned awareness of the sharp limitations of humanity is surely maintained. It is one of Handel’s most enigmatic works, in large part thanks to Congreve’s masterly libretto.

However much passionate Handelians may revel in almost all his operas, they must admit that in this one the straightforwardness of the action, the elegance of the verse, and the penetration of the psychology both inspire uniquely apt music — give the music something to be apt to — and also make wonderfully satisfying dramatic sense.