Rebecca Meltzer tells the story of Handel’s Semele with participating 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 a giant coronary heart. Director Rebecca Meltzer tells the story with participating readability and advantages from Hilary Cronin charming and delighting within the title function

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 complete 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 decent and small solid, with lots 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 components 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]. Moderately admirably they took the story at face worth, together with the ending the place Apollo (James Micklethwaite) comes down and pronounces the start 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 moderately 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 moderately extra current than ordinary. Throughout 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 – solid members bringing on fashions in a means 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 last 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 components have been current within the manufacturing, Meltzer and her solid moderately took every little thing at face worth. Actually, Sophie Goldrick’s Juno didn’t play up the comedic ingredient in her half (and I nonetheless keep in mind Marilyn Horne within the function and the best way she may bend a single be aware 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 enticing Semele, far much less of an air-head than ordinary. There was no try to vary the dramaturgy, Cronin merely introduced different components of the function into focus. Her means with the music was every little 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 effectively carried out, and all through the second two acts, Cronin managed to recommend that Semele moderately 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 participating persona. There was one different admirable ingredient. 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 wish 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 the 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 transferring.

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 ‘dangerous lady’ Juno was much less of a comic book flip than ordinary. She made her first scene moderately vivid, and I loved ‘Awake, Saturnia, from thy lethargy!’ while the scene with Masimbna Ushe’s Somnus was pure enjoyable. But moderately 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 outcome was a tremendous, severe dramatic efficiency from Winn and when she is transported to her sister’s new abode she was moderately much less the wide-eyed fool than ordinary. The sisters is likely to be taken benefit of by the gods, however they weren’t silly. And the moderately Purcellian duet with Cronin on the finish of Act Two was every little thing you wished.

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 extensive, dishevelled trousers, after which turned in a beautiful comedian flip as Somnus. Meckler made the set’s lack of a mattress nearly 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 moderately than scary.

Phil Wilcox (who didn’t as usually occurs double Somnus) was a sober, disciplined Cadmus. Puzzled by his daughters moderately than something worse. Louise Fuller introduced every little thing to Iris, make her recitatives telling and dealing up the comedic potentialities of this function, 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) immediately showing in an outfit clearly stolen from Tina Turner and making the lieto tremendous work effectively.

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

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