8/7/10, Barbican
4 hrs. I thought myself very stupid when, weeks after buying tickets for this concert performance with the intention of comparing and contrasting with the Paris production we saw at the weekend, we discovered it was exactly the same cast and crew. Was this to be evidence that it is in fact possible to have too much of a good thing?
In the event, no. Perhaps the singers, without McVicar's staging and the costumes to help them, had to work harder and so projected and connected better. Perhaps we were just a better audience, for (most of) whom English was our first language. The Paris audience liked it a lot, to judge by the rhythmic handclapping and multiple curtain calls at the end, but their applause for individual arias was muted and sporadic and they only laughed once.
We were a much more enthusiastic bunch. Act 1 still dragged. The counter-tenor was no better and there are only three good arias in an hour or more of music, including one each for Semele and Ino (who got big applause) and, of course, Endless Pleasure, in which Claire Debono seemed a little nervous.
But Act 2 is a cracker, with Richard Croft in great form singing I Must with Speed Amuse Her and Where E'er You Walk and Vivica Genaux getting huge applause for Iris, Hence Away. Both left the stage immediately after they'd stopped singing, so weren't there to acknowledge the applause. But Croft's ovation was so loud and prolonged he decided to return to acknowledge it... but got his timing wrong. His return coincided with the applause dying away. We resumed briefly out of embarrassment.
The singers' entrances and exits struck me as pretty random. There were chairs for all of them on stage throughout, as for a conventional oratorio, and sometimes they sat in them when they weren't singing and sometimes they drifted off stage. Could have been tighter.
Act 3 has both Myself I Shall Adore and No, No I'll Take No Less, within a few minutes of each other. Danielle de Niese gave her all in both (much more vigorously I thought than in Paris); she seemed a bit wobbly once or twice and took some sips of water in between the two arias, so she may have been struggling, but heavens! what energy. Both arias are completely over the top, but quite thrilling. There may not be anything subtle about this kind of performance but it's as exciting to watch and listen to as top-flight sport. There was also some entertaining by-play with Christophe Rousset (conducting his Les Talents Lyriques), who at one point took the mirror away from her. De Niese can also act, as can Peter Rose, in a wonderfully old-fashioned way, telegraphing his characters' reactions at the audience: he got several laughs as Somnus.
De Niese was dressed for stardom, in a bright red backless, strapless, bra-less number held up by two bits of string crossed over at the shoulders and revealing 1) quite a lot of rather droopy cleavage and 2) that she's a bulkier lass than at first appears. But the star singer was Genaux, with a deep mezzo voice at once creamy and harsh. At the curtain call she and Croft held hands: are they perhaps attached? or were they just happy to have upstaged Danielle?
A note on acoustics. We were closer to the singers near the front of the circle at the Barbican than we were in the second circle at Champs Elysees. Yet the sound was better in Paris: in London it often seemed thin and echoey. They speak of the Barbican's poor acoustics and one sees what they mean. The best bit was when Semele went to the rear of the stage, behind the chorus, where she was surrounded on three sides by wood, to sing a lament and we could hear every note.
Showing posts with label semele. Show all posts
Showing posts with label semele. Show all posts
Saturday, 10 July 2010
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
SEMELE
2/7/10, Theatre de Champs Elysees, Paris
It was, admittedly, absurdly extravagant to go all the way to Paris to see Semele after going all the way to Brussels to see it last year. And it becomes even more absurdly extravagant when (to make the trip worthwhile) you go to another opera, the ballet and three or four exhibitions as well. Not to mention deciding to book tickets for a concert performance of Semele in London six days later without realising it was the same cast and production...
But it's such a wonderful piece and (happily) grows on one with every hearing.
This was a revival of a David McVicar production from a few years ago, with Danielle de Niese newly-cast as Semele. She looks the part, playing her as a sort of coquettish 16-year old taken up by a much older, much more sophisticated man. There was a nice moment in the first act when the rivalrous sisters had a spat from which their father had to separate them, de Niese pointing "It was her" as he did so. And they giggled together convincingly when Ino was catapulted into heaven at Jove's command. She was sly, mischievous, self-mocking. In other words she can act as well as sing.
As to her voice... She pulled out all the stops for Myself I Shall Adore (pretending to hide the mirror, smirking as she gazed at herself) and for No, No I'll Take No Less especially. There are plenty of vocal pyrotechnics. But while the English tradition is to enunicate each syllable in the showpiece arias with crystal clarity ("Gay-hazing, gay-ayzing, gay-hay-hay-ay-ay-hay-hay-hayzing") Ms de Niese seems to give each note a different vowel sound. The purist in me suspects this may be cheating, but it's undeniably thrilling. On the other hand it makes it hard to hear the words -- something you could level at most of her performance.
That couldn't be said of the bass Peter Rose, who sang Cadmus the father and Somnus: you could hear every word and as Somnus he even managed to get the solemn Parisians to laugh.
There was a disappointing counter-tenor as the rejected bridegroom Athamas. Richard Croft as Jupiter didn't quite have the necessary heft for some of the role but sang Wheree'er You Walk with beauty and grace and got a deserved ovation.
Ino and Juno were sung by the mezzo Vivica Genaux. I'd assumed from her name that she was a local lass, but it turns out she's American too, born in Alaska. She was suitably villainous.
Endless Pleasure was sung by another soprano, Claire Debono, as Cupid. I had forgotten/failed to realise that the song was originally written for someone other than Semele (scarcely surprising really: it refers to her in the third person). After that ravishing aria at the end of Act One she doesn't have much to do, a problem resolved by McVicar who dressed her in sequin-covered scarlet and a pair of dark glasses plus long stick and had her mime the role of blind Cupid in subsequent scenes as Jupiter's hanger-on, alternating between Ariel-like manipulator and hapless victim (he was left fumbling after Semele knocked aways his stick during No No I'll Take No Less, a sign presumably that love was on the wane).
Having Cupid in the cast reminds you what an ensemble piece this is. And what a lot of great songs, too! Including Jupiter's I Must with Speed Amuse Her and Juno's Iris, Hence Away and a first act aria for Semele which I don't recall from earlier productions and which she sang solo in front of a drop curtain while the scene was changed behind it. It was a device McVicar used several times, and it worked perfectly in the highly artificial and stylised context of an 18th century work, though in the case of one of Juno's arias the curtains were closed not for a scene change but to draw a discreet veil over Jove and Semele's love-making. When they reopened he was smoking a post-coital cigar.
The principals were in immensely elaborate 18th century costume (or plain brown broadcloth for Cadmus and Athamas and for Ino); the chorus (men and women alike) in white tie and tails. The set, by Tanya McCallin, was a semi-circular back wall with three doorways; a central disc rose at an angle for the scenes set in heaven, an enormous bed covered in cushions at its centre on which Jove and Semele made love and Somnus slept. Towards the opera's end the bed had disappeared, and Semele made her final exit as she burns in Jupiter's fire through a circular trap while Jove held her cloak. A puff of smoke emerged.
It was a wittily-characterised production with sensible business, quite unlike the weird production at the Monnaie last year, presumably a reflection of the fact that McVicar has complete faith in the quality and dramatic carrying-power of his material.
The music came from Christophe Rousset and Les Talents Lyriques, however: who were also the band in Brussels. Not quite as nuanced a performance as John Eliot Gardner's, which we have on disc.
Jupiter was portrayed as a rich man who might just be starting to tire of this pretty little plaything he's acquired: so much so that at one point he takes off his black necktie and apparently contemplates using it as a garrotte, before employing it as a blindfold instead... and singing Where'er You Walk. That was the only point where the interpretation jarred (as in Idomeneo the other night): such a beautiful love song comes oddly from a character you've just seen exasperated.
It was a very hot night but the Parisians were dressed largely for comfort not speed, cool rather than elegant. Which was reassuring because the walk to the theatre (which is not, as billed, in the Champs Elysees but several blocks away) takes you past the likes of Dior and Chanel in the Av Montaigne and some seriously rich people.
It's also a beautiful theatre, and an historic one, with a spectacular art deco exterior, with massive square recessed panels and windows and three huge bas reliefs at the top, and an elegant curved moderne corner, but an art noueveau interior, with banisters and motifs on the doors of the boxes which could have come from Charles Rennie Mackintosh. I thought it was designed in the 1920s or even the 1930s. It turns out to have been built in 1913, and it's where Stravinsky's Rite of Spring had its notorious premiere.
Inside there's a dome filled with pastoral scenes of dancing and singing, packed with frankly sexy nudes and a series of inscriptions about music, opera etc which I couldn't entirely follow running round the bottom. There are four roundels dedicated to the orchestra, the choir, the sonata and the organ (the theatre has one, its pipes visible above and beside the proscenium).
Front of house space is generous though the bars undermanned and over-priced. The acoustic is lively (as evidence when someone dropped something during a quiet moment in Act 1). There is no opera pit as such, merely a simple step down from the front of the stalls.
The Arts Desk review of the show (with which I largely agree, including the slightly catty remarks about de Niese) is here:
http://www.theartsdesk.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1762:semele-th%C3%A9%C3%A2tre-de-champs-%C3%A9lys%C3%A9es-opera-review&Itemid=14
It was, admittedly, absurdly extravagant to go all the way to Paris to see Semele after going all the way to Brussels to see it last year. And it becomes even more absurdly extravagant when (to make the trip worthwhile) you go to another opera, the ballet and three or four exhibitions as well. Not to mention deciding to book tickets for a concert performance of Semele in London six days later without realising it was the same cast and production...
But it's such a wonderful piece and (happily) grows on one with every hearing.
This was a revival of a David McVicar production from a few years ago, with Danielle de Niese newly-cast as Semele. She looks the part, playing her as a sort of coquettish 16-year old taken up by a much older, much more sophisticated man. There was a nice moment in the first act when the rivalrous sisters had a spat from which their father had to separate them, de Niese pointing "It was her" as he did so. And they giggled together convincingly when Ino was catapulted into heaven at Jove's command. She was sly, mischievous, self-mocking. In other words she can act as well as sing.
As to her voice... She pulled out all the stops for Myself I Shall Adore (pretending to hide the mirror, smirking as she gazed at herself) and for No, No I'll Take No Less especially. There are plenty of vocal pyrotechnics. But while the English tradition is to enunicate each syllable in the showpiece arias with crystal clarity ("Gay-hazing, gay-ayzing, gay-hay-hay-ay-ay-hay-hay-hayzing") Ms de Niese seems to give each note a different vowel sound. The purist in me suspects this may be cheating, but it's undeniably thrilling. On the other hand it makes it hard to hear the words -- something you could level at most of her performance.
That couldn't be said of the bass Peter Rose, who sang Cadmus the father and Somnus: you could hear every word and as Somnus he even managed to get the solemn Parisians to laugh.
There was a disappointing counter-tenor as the rejected bridegroom Athamas. Richard Croft as Jupiter didn't quite have the necessary heft for some of the role but sang Wheree'er You Walk with beauty and grace and got a deserved ovation.
Ino and Juno were sung by the mezzo Vivica Genaux. I'd assumed from her name that she was a local lass, but it turns out she's American too, born in Alaska. She was suitably villainous.
Endless Pleasure was sung by another soprano, Claire Debono, as Cupid. I had forgotten/failed to realise that the song was originally written for someone other than Semele (scarcely surprising really: it refers to her in the third person). After that ravishing aria at the end of Act One she doesn't have much to do, a problem resolved by McVicar who dressed her in sequin-covered scarlet and a pair of dark glasses plus long stick and had her mime the role of blind Cupid in subsequent scenes as Jupiter's hanger-on, alternating between Ariel-like manipulator and hapless victim (he was left fumbling after Semele knocked aways his stick during No No I'll Take No Less, a sign presumably that love was on the wane).
Having Cupid in the cast reminds you what an ensemble piece this is. And what a lot of great songs, too! Including Jupiter's I Must with Speed Amuse Her and Juno's Iris, Hence Away and a first act aria for Semele which I don't recall from earlier productions and which she sang solo in front of a drop curtain while the scene was changed behind it. It was a device McVicar used several times, and it worked perfectly in the highly artificial and stylised context of an 18th century work, though in the case of one of Juno's arias the curtains were closed not for a scene change but to draw a discreet veil over Jove and Semele's love-making. When they reopened he was smoking a post-coital cigar.
The principals were in immensely elaborate 18th century costume (or plain brown broadcloth for Cadmus and Athamas and for Ino); the chorus (men and women alike) in white tie and tails. The set, by Tanya McCallin, was a semi-circular back wall with three doorways; a central disc rose at an angle for the scenes set in heaven, an enormous bed covered in cushions at its centre on which Jove and Semele made love and Somnus slept. Towards the opera's end the bed had disappeared, and Semele made her final exit as she burns in Jupiter's fire through a circular trap while Jove held her cloak. A puff of smoke emerged.
It was a wittily-characterised production with sensible business, quite unlike the weird production at the Monnaie last year, presumably a reflection of the fact that McVicar has complete faith in the quality and dramatic carrying-power of his material.
The music came from Christophe Rousset and Les Talents Lyriques, however: who were also the band in Brussels. Not quite as nuanced a performance as John Eliot Gardner's, which we have on disc.
Jupiter was portrayed as a rich man who might just be starting to tire of this pretty little plaything he's acquired: so much so that at one point he takes off his black necktie and apparently contemplates using it as a garrotte, before employing it as a blindfold instead... and singing Where'er You Walk. That was the only point where the interpretation jarred (as in Idomeneo the other night): such a beautiful love song comes oddly from a character you've just seen exasperated.
It was a very hot night but the Parisians were dressed largely for comfort not speed, cool rather than elegant. Which was reassuring because the walk to the theatre (which is not, as billed, in the Champs Elysees but several blocks away) takes you past the likes of Dior and Chanel in the Av Montaigne and some seriously rich people.
It's also a beautiful theatre, and an historic one, with a spectacular art deco exterior, with massive square recessed panels and windows and three huge bas reliefs at the top, and an elegant curved moderne corner, but an art noueveau interior, with banisters and motifs on the doors of the boxes which could have come from Charles Rennie Mackintosh. I thought it was designed in the 1920s or even the 1930s. It turns out to have been built in 1913, and it's where Stravinsky's Rite of Spring had its notorious premiere.
Inside there's a dome filled with pastoral scenes of dancing and singing, packed with frankly sexy nudes and a series of inscriptions about music, opera etc which I couldn't entirely follow running round the bottom. There are four roundels dedicated to the orchestra, the choir, the sonata and the organ (the theatre has one, its pipes visible above and beside the proscenium).
Front of house space is generous though the bars undermanned and over-priced. The acoustic is lively (as evidence when someone dropped something during a quiet moment in Act 1). There is no opera pit as such, merely a simple step down from the front of the stalls.
The Arts Desk review of the show (with which I largely agree, including the slightly catty remarks about de Niese) is here:
http://www.theartsdesk.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1762:semele-th%C3%A9%C3%A2tre-de-champs-%C3%A9lys%C3%A9es-opera-review&Itemid=14
Thursday, 15 October 2009
SEMELE
27/9/09, La Monnaie, Brussels
Handel's opera, directed by a Chinese visual artist, Zhang Huan, trying his hand at opera for the first time. A curious East-West mix which didn't work (because the Eastern elements seemed entirely arbitrary) but which musically wasn't half bad. Christophe Rousset and Les Talents Lyriques were excellent, with wonderful colour and pace and tunefulness. Handel can sound bland sometimes, even with period instruments: here he never did.
The Semele (Ying Huang) was a bit dour and dumpy, and out of her depth and shouty-screechy in the dramatic aria towards the end ("No, no I'll take no less") and struggling a bit in "Myself I shall adore". In the latter she wasn't a patch on Carolyn Sampson at the Proms the other day (I watched it again online and it's a truly brilliant performance; though Rosemary Joshua in an exceedingly sexy version done in Aix in the 1990s, which I think was the basis of a version we saw with her at ENO, runs Ms Sampson exceedingly close).
This Semele did contemplative very well, though: "Oh sleep why dost thou leave me?" was beautiful; even better was "Endless pleasure", sung while suspended from a hanging moon at the end of Act 1.
Best of all was Jupiter (Jeremy Ovenden), who sang "Where e'er you walk" better than I've ever heard it, while washing Semele's feet: hairs on the head time (the same went for "Endless pleasure" and "Oh sleep"). And honorary mentions for the father, Iris (Sarah Tynan) and Somnus.
The best of the Oriental interpolations was the set, a genuine 12th(?) century Chinese temple which we saw in a black and white documentary, projected onto the front cloth during the overture, being demolished and then re-erected in the artist's hangar-like studio in Shanghai, while subtitled locals told us its somewhat lurid recent history (someone was executed for plotting a murder) and we met the son of the owner, who hoped for something more modern to impress potential brides.
And then the curtain rose to reveal the very same temple, its wooden framework fitting the stage almost exactly, with massive round wooden columns and even more massive cross-beams. It was an appropriate setting for the opening marriage scene; filled with shrubbery for the scenes in heaven; appeared covered in a great crimson cloth across the roof in which Somnus slept at the start of Act 3.
The costumes were a curious mix of European Renaissance (husband in tights and tunic; Iris in black dress and white ruff) and classical Chinese, for the women especially. The chorus wore orange or red Chinese robes which they discarded to reveal slate blue pyjamas and polka-dot underpants in the orgy as Jupiter and Semele make love.
Other eastern elements: a pantomime donkey at the start (donkeys are apparently associated with peasant weddings in China), which reappeared in the orgy scene with an enormous phallus ( wonder how the mother in the audience with three young kids explained that to the little ones?), and two sumo wrestlers at the end of Act 2. At one point a Mongolian throat-singer entered through the audience, singing unaccompanied, her rills and trills reminiscent of Handel's, and picking up a white chiffon scarf that Semele drops as she is translated to the heavens (a bit like the bride's bouquet, perhaps?). In the final scene there's a white Chinese dragon, and we last see Semele wrapped in its coils, lamenting her fate ("Ah me! too late I now repent").
Finally the conventional happy ending was dropped for a humming chorus of the Internationale as Semele's red coffin is carried off. Much of this was frankly baffling, though it kept one's interest. A helpful gloss was provided by this review in the New Tork Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/arts/17iht-LOOMIS.html
There were some other good bits. Somnus was awoken from sleep in a vast blanket on the roof of the temple, a topless Penthesilea beside him: the pair then fly off (there was a lot of flying, and it was well done). While he sang a huge inflatable doll beside him was gradually blown up... then deflated again.
And "Myself I shall adore" was sung in front of a vast mirror filling the whole stage, reflecting the audience as well as Semele. We liked that, and laughed: about the only moment the audience roused itself as this Sunday matinee. We were a pretty unenthusiastic lot, and there was no applause for even the most finely-sung arias.
Handel's opera, directed by a Chinese visual artist, Zhang Huan, trying his hand at opera for the first time. A curious East-West mix which didn't work (because the Eastern elements seemed entirely arbitrary) but which musically wasn't half bad. Christophe Rousset and Les Talents Lyriques were excellent, with wonderful colour and pace and tunefulness. Handel can sound bland sometimes, even with period instruments: here he never did.
The Semele (Ying Huang) was a bit dour and dumpy, and out of her depth and shouty-screechy in the dramatic aria towards the end ("No, no I'll take no less") and struggling a bit in "Myself I shall adore". In the latter she wasn't a patch on Carolyn Sampson at the Proms the other day (I watched it again online and it's a truly brilliant performance; though Rosemary Joshua in an exceedingly sexy version done in Aix in the 1990s, which I think was the basis of a version we saw with her at ENO, runs Ms Sampson exceedingly close).
This Semele did contemplative very well, though: "Oh sleep why dost thou leave me?" was beautiful; even better was "Endless pleasure", sung while suspended from a hanging moon at the end of Act 1.
Best of all was Jupiter (Jeremy Ovenden), who sang "Where e'er you walk" better than I've ever heard it, while washing Semele's feet: hairs on the head time (the same went for "Endless pleasure" and "Oh sleep"). And honorary mentions for the father, Iris (Sarah Tynan) and Somnus.
The best of the Oriental interpolations was the set, a genuine 12th(?) century Chinese temple which we saw in a black and white documentary, projected onto the front cloth during the overture, being demolished and then re-erected in the artist's hangar-like studio in Shanghai, while subtitled locals told us its somewhat lurid recent history (someone was executed for plotting a murder) and we met the son of the owner, who hoped for something more modern to impress potential brides.
And then the curtain rose to reveal the very same temple, its wooden framework fitting the stage almost exactly, with massive round wooden columns and even more massive cross-beams. It was an appropriate setting for the opening marriage scene; filled with shrubbery for the scenes in heaven; appeared covered in a great crimson cloth across the roof in which Somnus slept at the start of Act 3.
The costumes were a curious mix of European Renaissance (husband in tights and tunic; Iris in black dress and white ruff) and classical Chinese, for the women especially. The chorus wore orange or red Chinese robes which they discarded to reveal slate blue pyjamas and polka-dot underpants in the orgy as Jupiter and Semele make love.
Other eastern elements: a pantomime donkey at the start (donkeys are apparently associated with peasant weddings in China), which reappeared in the orgy scene with an enormous phallus ( wonder how the mother in the audience with three young kids explained that to the little ones?), and two sumo wrestlers at the end of Act 2. At one point a Mongolian throat-singer entered through the audience, singing unaccompanied, her rills and trills reminiscent of Handel's, and picking up a white chiffon scarf that Semele drops as she is translated to the heavens (a bit like the bride's bouquet, perhaps?). In the final scene there's a white Chinese dragon, and we last see Semele wrapped in its coils, lamenting her fate ("Ah me! too late I now repent").
Finally the conventional happy ending was dropped for a humming chorus of the Internationale as Semele's red coffin is carried off. Much of this was frankly baffling, though it kept one's interest. A helpful gloss was provided by this review in the New Tork Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/arts/17iht-LOOMIS.html
There were some other good bits. Somnus was awoken from sleep in a vast blanket on the roof of the temple, a topless Penthesilea beside him: the pair then fly off (there was a lot of flying, and it was well done). While he sang a huge inflatable doll beside him was gradually blown up... then deflated again.
And "Myself I shall adore" was sung in front of a vast mirror filling the whole stage, reflecting the audience as well as Semele. We liked that, and laughed: about the only moment the audience roused itself as this Sunday matinee. We were a pretty unenthusiastic lot, and there was no applause for even the most finely-sung arias.
Sunday, 16 August 2009
PROM: HANDEL
12/8/09, Royal Albert Hall
2 hrs 15 mins. Harry Christophers and The Sixteen (who on this occasion numbered 32 plus band and soprano Carolyn Sampson for the solos) in an all-Handel programme.
All four 1727 Coronation Odes (George II), interspersed with a rousing overture (Arrival of the Queen of Sheba: she got there first, I arrived too late), plus extracts from Semele, a lush 1707 Italian setting of Salve Regina and a 1735 Organ Concerto. A clever blend of the familiar and the unfamiliar and pretty much unalloyed joy.
Salve Regina (with Carolyn Sampson as soprano soloist in a demure black dress) was delightful and sensuous, with a brief, quiet coda.
The organ concerto (Alastair Ross) was apparently written to be played at performances of the oratorio Athalia, drawing on Handel's reputation as one of the finest organists of the age (according to the programme). There really wasn't much for the band to do, though it did end with a rousing Alleluia chorus to trumpet and drums accompaniment. A fizzy, showy work.
Carolyn Sampson was one wonderful form as Semele, playing the coquette in a startling backless dress. I thought she was a bit underpowered at the start, her voice getting lost in the Albert Hall's vast spaces, but she turned out to be perfect. They did three numbers: Endless Pleasure; My Racking Thoughts (a slow, reflective number sung to an unusual continuo accompaniment by cello, harp and theorbo playing a repeated, syncopated figure); and Myself I Shall Adore. For the last one Christophers handed her a mirror (the concert was televised) and she had enormous fun pouting and preening, especially in the da capo repeat with spectacular ornamentation and a positive unaccompanied cadenza at the conclusion.
The anthems build steadily to the triumphant Zadok, which made the hair stand on end just as it's supposed to. A musically-sophisticated composer who nonetheless knew how to engage an audience with directness and simplicity. Handel's choral writing at its finest.
2 hrs 15 mins. Harry Christophers and The Sixteen (who on this occasion numbered 32 plus band and soprano Carolyn Sampson for the solos) in an all-Handel programme.
All four 1727 Coronation Odes (George II), interspersed with a rousing overture (Arrival of the Queen of Sheba: she got there first, I arrived too late), plus extracts from Semele, a lush 1707 Italian setting of Salve Regina and a 1735 Organ Concerto. A clever blend of the familiar and the unfamiliar and pretty much unalloyed joy.
Salve Regina (with Carolyn Sampson as soprano soloist in a demure black dress) was delightful and sensuous, with a brief, quiet coda.
The organ concerto (Alastair Ross) was apparently written to be played at performances of the oratorio Athalia, drawing on Handel's reputation as one of the finest organists of the age (according to the programme). There really wasn't much for the band to do, though it did end with a rousing Alleluia chorus to trumpet and drums accompaniment. A fizzy, showy work.
Carolyn Sampson was one wonderful form as Semele, playing the coquette in a startling backless dress. I thought she was a bit underpowered at the start, her voice getting lost in the Albert Hall's vast spaces, but she turned out to be perfect. They did three numbers: Endless Pleasure; My Racking Thoughts (a slow, reflective number sung to an unusual continuo accompaniment by cello, harp and theorbo playing a repeated, syncopated figure); and Myself I Shall Adore. For the last one Christophers handed her a mirror (the concert was televised) and she had enormous fun pouting and preening, especially in the da capo repeat with spectacular ornamentation and a positive unaccompanied cadenza at the conclusion.
The anthems build steadily to the triumphant Zadok, which made the hair stand on end just as it's supposed to. A musically-sophisticated composer who nonetheless knew how to engage an audience with directness and simplicity. Handel's choral writing at its finest.
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