Handel: Semele ***
Garsington Opera, 1st June 2017
“Endless pleasure” could almost be the anthem of opera festivals up and down the country, accompanied by images of long interval picnics and rolling lawns basking beneath golden late afternoon sun. Garsington Opera is one such pastoral idyll – a deer park, lake and cricket pitch all on hand – opening its 2017 season with Handel’s Semele, in which the title character extols the joys of being Jupiter’s mistress, “Endless pleasure, endless love”. Whether it could be used to describe Annilese Miskimmon’s hyperactive production is another matter.
Heidi Stober (Semele) and Christine Rice (Juno)
© Johan Persson
Read the full review on Bachtrack.