Event listing

​Academy of Ancient Music & Cambridge Handel Opera Company singers

Cambridge Handel Opera Company, Cambridge Early Music and Academy of Ancient Music join forces for the first time for a rare concert performance of John Eccles’ Semele.

​Semele is a lively retelling of the story of Jupiter’s pursuit of the Theban princess. Juno plots her downfall by persuading her to insist on seeing him in his divine form, whereupon his thunderbolts consume her. Planned for the opening of London’s Italian Opera House, Semele was never performed at the time, and the libretto is best known today from Handel’s later Oratorio.

It is a highly dramatic and effective response to the text in an attractive idiom mixing English and Italian elements and deserves to be better known.

Pre-concert talk at 6.30pm – Michaelhouse Chapel
Professor Peter Holman and Dr Alan Howard presented by Dr Ruth Smith