Rebecca Meltzer tells the story of Handel’s Semele with partaking readability at Waterperry Opera with Hilary Cronin & Michael Lafferty

Handel: Semele – Hilary Cronin & ensemble – Waterperry Opera Competition (Photograph: Jennifer Hawthorn)

Handel: Semele; Hilary Cronin, Michael Lafferty, Sophie Goldrrick, Nathan Mercieca, Sarah Winn, director: Rebecca Meltzer, conductor: Bertie Baigent, Waterperry Opera Competition; Opera Holland Park
Reviewed 23 August 2025

A small-scale manufacturing with an enormous coronary heart. Director Rebecca Meltzer tells the story with partaking readability and advantages from Hilary Cronin charming and delighting within the title position

Having completed its summer season performances in Oxfordshire, Waterperry Opera Competition made two visitor appearances at Opera Holland Park bringing their new manufacturing of Handel’s Semele. We caught the second, on 22 August 2025. The director was Rebecca Meltzer and conductor was Bertie Baigent with Hilary Cronin as Semele, Michael Lafferty as Jupiter, Sophie Goldrick as Juno, Nathan Mercieca as Athamas, Sarah Winn as Ino, Phil Wilcox as Cadmus, Louse Fuller as Iris, James Micklethwaite as Apollo and Masimba Ushe as Somnus and the Excessive Priest. Designs have been by Jennifer Gregory, lighting by Catja Hamilton and motion by Alexandria McCauley.

Meltzer’s manufacturing took benefit of the total extent of the Opera Holland Park stage even including a walkway throughout the center of the pit. Many of the motion was on the forestage with the principle stage used for emphasis. Jennifer Gregory’s designs have been modern, the mortals wearing shades of black, white and gray with garments that may have come from Cos, while the immortals have been in vivid color with paint on their pores and skin and graffiti-esque garments.

Handel: Semele – Michael Lafferty, Hilary Cronin – Waterperry Opera Competition (Photograph: Jennifer Hawthorn)

It was a good and small forged, with most of the smaller roles being doubled with the refrain, however fast modifications and clear delineation of costumes meant that there was by no means any confusion, and the choruses crammed the area admirably. Bertie Baigent directed a small-ish band from the harpsichord, however even with a second harpsichord within the ensemble the instrument sounded undernourished and the cello was the principle driver within the recitatives.

The set was summary with a big rectangular altar the main focus of consideration, this lit up and helped to make sense of the libretto’s numerous descriptions of various altars lighting up and dying. This mirrored Meltzer’s consideration to element within the textual content, this was a easy, small-scale manufacturing but by no means shirked and parts of the plot, nor did Meltzer attempt to impose an alternate dramaturgy on the items [as Oliver Mears did at Covent Garden, recently, see my review]. Relatively admirably they took the story at face worth, together with the ending the place Apollo (James Micklethwaite) comes down and broadcasts the delivery of Bacchus, leaving us to make the connections.

Handel by no means staged works with substantial polyphonic choruses and a chunk like Semele stays a problem on the trendy operatic stage. Alexandria McCauley’s motion within the choruses felt like an admirable extension of the drama somewhat than one thing imposed to maintain the stage busy while the singing occurred as can typically be the case.

Handel: Semele – Hilary Cronin & ensemble – Waterperry Opera Competition (Photograph: Jennifer Hawthorn)

Meltzer made Michael Lafferty’s Jupiter somewhat extra current than normal. In the course of the overture we watched Hilary Cronin’s Semele make choices on the altar of Jupiter and get a response within the type of an eagle – forged members bringing on fashions in a method that was each amusing and apposite. Lastly, Lafferty’s Jupiter himself appeared in order that her ravishment by the god later within the act didn’t really feel out of the blue. This continued within the opera after which on the finish, throughout the remaining refrain, we noticed Lafferty’s Jupiter ask forgiveness from Sophie Goldrick’s Juno in a gesture remarkably much like Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro.

Although the comedian parts have been current within the manufacturing, Meltzer and her forged somewhat took every thing at face worth. Definitely, Sophie Goldrick’s Juno didn’t play up the comedic component in her half (and I nonetheless keep in mind Marilyn Horne within the position and the best way she may bend a single notice of the recitative to comedian impact), and there was no doubling of Juno and Ino. When Juno appeared as Ino, we noticed Goldrick (as Juno) controlling and ventriloquising Sarah Winn’s Ino, which was way more troubling and fewer comedian than maybe Handel meant.

Hilary Cronin made an attractive Semele, far much less of an air-head than normal. There was no try to vary the dramaturgy, Cronin merely introduced different parts of the position into focus. Her method with the music was every thing we may have wished, in order that ‘Countless pleasure’ was an actual delight for passagework that mixed accuracy with appeal. Cronin had no effort filling the auditorium with ravishing delight. ‘Myself, I shall adore’ was intriguingly carried out, at first Cronin’s Semele was laughing, not believing and it took a magic gesture from Goldrick’s Juno to make her look within the mirror and be captured. The remorse later within the act was properly carried out, and all through the second two acts, Cronin managed to recommend that Semele somewhat than being a silly airhead, was bored and stressed as a result of she wasn’t silly. All this might not have labored with out her partaking character. There was one different admirable component. Regardless of the vagaries of an auditorium not likely geared as much as small scale Baroque opera, Cronin managed to get a exceptional quantity of the phrases over.

Handel: Semele – Sophie Goldrick – Waterperry Opera Competition (Photograph: Jennifer Hawthorn)

Michael Lafferty made a roguish, barely bad-lad feeling Jupiter. He was out for some enjoyable, didn’t need to get caught but tried to deal with his Semele pretty – with the emphasis on ‘his’. ‘The place’er you stroll’ was finely carried out, with out ever fairly ravishing, and in direction of the tip you didn’t really feel his remorse went that deep in order that the accompanied recitative ‘Ah, whither is she gone’ was touching however not that shifting.

Sohie Goldrick made an admirable Juno. Goldrick was clearly having nice enjoyable, and alert to the felicities in Congreve’s textual content even when her interpretation as one thing of a ‘unhealthy lady’ Juno was much less of a comic book flip than normal. She made her first scene somewhat vivid, and I loved ‘Awake, Saturnia, from thy lethargy!’ while the scene with Masimbna Ushe’s Somnus was pure enjoyable. But somewhat pointed too. Her triumph on the finish was not overdone.

Sarah Winn made a touching Ino, and Meltzer introduced out the sheer confusion of the love triangle that Handel and Congreve depict (Ino – Athamas – Semele) with Meltzer making the motion match Handel’s music greater than Congreve’s phrases. The consequence was a nice, critical dramatic efficiency from Winn and when she is transported to her sister’s new abode she was somewhat much less the wide-eyed fool than normal. The sisters is likely to be taken benefit of by the gods, however they weren’t silly. And the somewhat Purcellian duet with Cronin on the finish of Act Two was every thing you needed.

Handel: Semele – Masimba Ushe as Somnue – Waterperry Opera Competition (Photograph: Jennifer Hawthorn)

Nathan Mercieca was a little bit of a pleasant boy drip as Athamas, by no means fairly positive which
sister he was in love with. Mercieca has fairly a soft-grained voice and
there was by no means something heroic, but it made the sound interesting. Masimba Ushe made a powerful Excessive Priest, rocking a classy pair of very vast, dishevelled trousers, after which turned in a beautiful comedian flip as Somnus. Meckler made the set’s lack of a mattress virtually a advantage, as Ushe made Somnus so determined for sleep he easy bedded down on the ground. In contrast to at Covent Backyard, this Somnus’ devotion to Passiphea was touching somewhat than scary.

Phil Wilcox (who didn’t as usually occurs double Somnus) was a sober, disciplined Cadmus. Puzzled by his daughters somewhat than something worse. Louise Fuller introduced every thing to Iris, make her recitatives telling and dealing up the comedic potentialities of this position, and this Iris was positively put upon by Goldrick’s Juno. And we acquired Apollo, with James Micklethwaite (who had been singing tenor within the choruses) all of the sudden showing in an outfit clearly stolen from Tina Turner and making the lieto nice work properly.

Handel: Semele – Waterperry Opera Competition (Photograph: Jennifer Hawthorn)

Within the pit, the small ensemble was splendidly lithe and alert beneath Baigent’s course. They managed to fill the auditorium, and his speeds have been suitably full of life but there was by no means feeling that he was driving alongside, we by no means felt that ‘look how briskly we will sing this passagework’.