To Read the 2020 Production Programme
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Fame and immortality come to church OCT-NOV 2020 NZOPERA NZOPERA Semele SEMELE 202003 Picturing the story of Semele in art The story of Semele and of her ultimately fatal love for Jupiter appears frequently in art from the sixteenth century through until the end of the nineteenth century. Over this long period and depending on the medium in which the story is represented, different aspects of the myth are emphasised. As a result, different meanings are conveyed. On a hand-painted majolica plate, [fig. 1], intended to flatter the owner’s classical we see, on the left, Semele conversing erudition. with the jealous Juno disguised as Semele’s sister Ino. Juno appeals to By the end of the nineteenth century, Semele’s vanity and persuades her to we find a very different interpretation of entreat her lover Jupiter to show himself the Semele story. The French Symbolist in his divine form, knowing that in doing painter Gustave Moreau’s spectacular so Semele will be destroyed. large oil painting [fig. 2] depicts Jupiter as a fantastical hybrid Graeco-Hindu Fig. 1 Workshop of Guido Durantino, Urbino. Fig. 2 Gustave Moreau, Majolica plate. 1535. Tin-glazed earthenware. Jupiter and Semele, 1895. On the right half of the plate Jupiter God. He sits motionless and impassive London: British Museum. © Trustees of the Oil on canvas. Paris: descends on the sleeping Semele. In one while Semele lies supine at his knee. British Museum Musée Gustave Moreau. hand he carries a lightning bolt but in the Blood red rays emanate like a Christian © Wikimedia Commons other he holds a coat of arms. The arms halo from Jupiter’s head and are picked belong to Anne de Montmorency (1493- up by the bloody wound on her side. 1567), Grand Master of France during When Moreau was asked what it all the reign of François I and for whom the meant, he wrote that his vision was to plate was made in Urbino in 1535. This depict the human desire to escape from is just one of about twenty surviving corruptible flesh and blood into the pieces of a dinner service. Each piece is immortal realm of pure spirit. painted with a different scene from Greek mythology, so collectively they were David Maskill 02 NZOPERA SEMELE 2020 Tena koutou Buying a ticket for Semele, I would like to acknowledge our key reading this programme stakeholders in supporting us through and enjoying an opera unprecedented and uncertain times to “Endless pleasure, endless love, a place we can now stage opera around performance live, together, New Zealand in 2020. I also thank Semele enjoys above! means so much to this the opera ecosystem for rising to the On her bosom Jove reclining, Company. It is the realisation challenge and supporting the industry of careful planning, logistical through their own artists’ recitals. Useless now his thunder lies; rebooting, and sheer It is now your support that we need To her arms his bolts resigning, determination to provide more than ever. This is important for the opera for you, and jobs for our work we do, and the people we connect And his lightning to her eyes.” singers and creatives. through reimagining opera on a national scale. Semele, Act I We have held our breath, reworked Mō tātou, ā, mō kā uri a muri ake nei budgets during lockdown, and followed For us and our children after us protocols and updates, as you will have. This performing edition published We have seen digital offerings flood by Peter Jones has been supplied in from around the globe which have by Clear Music Australia Pty Ltd. brought great joy. They highlighted the need for us to increase our own film Annabel Holland archives - hence our ‘Voice your Support’ New Zealand Opera Chair campaign. This will enable us to provide opera to more New Zealanders; I particularly enjoyed watching the Mother’s Day aria serenades and the Please note: Information is correct at the time of printing. New Zealand TVNZ1 screening of Tosca. Opera reserves the right to make alterations to the cast as required due to unavoidable circumstances. Use of cameras, mobile phones and record- ing devices is strictly prohibited. Latecomers will not be admitted until a suitable break in the performance. 03 04 NZOPERA Semele 06 SEMELE 202007 PROUD SUPPORTERS OF WHITEHAVEN AD The Perfect Marriage. 06 NZOPERA SEMELE 2020 Director’s Notes Conductor’s Notes The history of religions reaches down and makes contact with that which is essentially human: the relation of man (sic) to the sacred. The history of religions can play an extremely important When Handel first ventured into English Handel’s friend, Mary Delany, loved it but role in the crisis we are living through. The crises of modern man oratorio (with Esther in 1732) he wrote in her diary that her husband, the (sic) are to a large extent religious ones, insofar as they are an expected it to be staged. His plans were Rev Dr Patrick Delany, ‘does not think it proper for him to go’ because of its awakening of his (sic) awareness to an absence of meaning. thwarted by a grumpy Bishop of London. When, a few years later, Italian opera in ‘profane’ story. From one point of view, Mircea Eliade London fell out of vogue (victim to the Handel uses the magnificent apparatus persistent barrage of satirical writing of his sacred oratorios in the service Handel’s Semele was designed for It now seems strange to me that the from Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, of, - on the face of it - a very un-Christian presentation “in the manner of an last time I conceived and directed this Joseph Addison and others) Handel comedy. oratorio”. An oratorio is by its nature not work was in the immediate aftermath returned to English-language oratorio. only a concert work but also a religious of the Global Financial Crisis in Ireland. But as Thomas de Mallet Burgess one. However, Handel’s choice of subject I witnessed first-hand how a deeply While the Bishop of London’s rules observes, the drama explores themes is quite secular. Its plot, full of rivalries spiritual nation had sold its collective still applied, Handel never stopped of hubris and greed that seem very and romantic relationships, has as much soul to Mammon. When the collapse regarding this as a dramatic genre. contemporary indeed. Perhaps Dr to do with The Crown as any religious came it left a trail of destruction in (Messiah – written for a particular Delany might, after all, have got some drama. And its character-based narrative peoples’ lives and a Government that situation in Dublin – is an exception in inspiration for his sermons had he drive pushes us to consider it more as was insolvent. An event that shook the this regard.) Handel oratorio is dramatic. ventured into the theatre. opera than an oratorio. Thus, contained country to its financial and spiritual core. It has all the elements of opera (the in the very form of the work, there is a And one from which it has still not fully action carried forward in deftly-paced Peter Walls tension between the spiritual and the recovered. recitative and emotional states explored Conductor material, heaven and earth, the sacred in beautiful and often dazzling da capo and the profane. This explains the choice This time around (and I could not have arias) but with a greatly enhanced role of a cathedral for the staging of this predicted it when programming the for a dramatic chorus and an English- production. In choosing to stage Semele work) we are in the midst of a global language libretto on a sacred subject here we are supporting the metaphysical apocalypse that is questioning our (think Saul, Samson, Belshazzar, Jeptha). tension within it. This location also overreaching ambitions as a species. But Semele? Charles Jennens (librettist provides an ideal architecture for the The current pandemic is giving for Messiah) complained that Semele creative team to explore the tensions humanity a crash course in apocalypse was ‘no oratorio, but a baudy opera’. within concert and music-theatre styles management. Like climate disruption, it’s of presentation. global and it’s deadly. Semele explores what happens when Semele is us. ambition overreaches itself having acquired sudden wealth, power and privilege. As such it represents the oldest and most contemporary of stories. Thomas de Mallet Burgess Director 07 08 The 2020 Ryman Dame Malvina Major Foundation Mina Foley Award ThThee 20 202020 Ry Rymanman Da Dameme M aMalvinalvina M aMajorjor Fo Foundationundation M Minaina Fo Foleyley A wAwardard Semele NZOPERA 10 Samoan tenor Amitai Pati is this year’s Ryman Dame Malvina Major Samoan tenor Amitai Pati is this year’s Ryman Dame Malvina Major FoundationSamoan Mina tenor Foley Amitai Award Pati isrecipient this year’s making Ryman his Damerole and Malvina company Major Foundation Mina Foley Award recipient making his role and company debutFoundation as Jupiter/Apollo Mina Foley with Award New Zealandrecipient Opera making's 20 his20 role produc�on and Company of debut as Jupiter/Apollo with New Zealand Opera's 2020 produc�on of Handel'sdebut Semele as Jupiter/Apollo. with New Zealand Opera's 2020 production of Handel'sHandel's Semele Semele.. Earlier this year Amitai made his European debut as Nadir in a concert EarlierEarlier this this year year Amitai Amitai made made his his European European debut debut as asNadir Nadir in ain concert a concert performance of Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles presented by Les Grandes performanceperformance of ofBizet’s Bizet’s Les Les pêcheurs pêcheurs de perlesde perles presented presented by Lesby Les Grandes Grandes Voix at the Philharmonie in Paris.