Too hot for Handel CLASSICAL CDs

SEMELE THEATRE ROYAL,

GLASGOW, MARCH 1 & 4;

EDINBURGH FESTIVAL THEATRE, MARCH 17 & 19

5/5

THIS enchanting new production of Handel's Semele is quite likely to be Scottish Opera's last new staging for some time. After the company's revival of Fidelio in May, main-scale performances in Scotland will be suspended as part of the financial restructuring plan imposed by the Scottish Executive.

When the current restricted season ends in June the remaining fulltime members of the chorus will be dismissed and the company will start its nine-month dark period, with no plans for full-scale opera production throughout the 2005-2006 season.

Considering the shameful treatment meted out to this artistically outstanding national institution, it is almost strangely apposite that the main dramatic thrust of their final new production should be the power and hedonistic pleasure derived from music and love.

Completed in 1743, Semele ran for only four performances, with one brief revival, before Handel decided that its almost sexual explicitness did not sit too comfortably alongside his considerably more popular biblical oratorios of the time. At face value, the plot is mythology-based. The earthly Semele becomes the mistress of Jupiter and demands immortality and the right to experience his devotion in his cosmic incarnation, a request which the thunder God can never grant without destroying her. Unwittingly, however, he agrees, bringing about the sudden and terrible demise of Semele, although not before a child is conceived, who rises from her ashes to become Bacchus, god of Wine and Merriment.

Scottish Opera's beautifully staged new production opens with a scene which is probably exactly how the work was experienced by theatre-goers of the mid-18th century: a line-up of choir chairs, choristers in formal concert wear taking their places, four soloists in front clutching their vocal scores.

All was not as it first appeared, though. Suffice to say that oratorio almost imperceptively transforms into opera and a truly memorable baroque operatic experience gets under way.

Director John La Bouchardiere has opted for, what in the company's current financial situation, might be described as an "economical" staging.

There is little in the way of furniture; a massive futon-style bed which flies in and out occasionally is about the sum of it. Space and light are his mainstays, with a wonderful mirrored stage floor, video images and backdrop projections providing both fantasy sequences and witty observations. The brilliant lighting and costume designs of Giuseppe di Lorio and Magali Gerberon add a final touch of glamour to a production that's visually dazzling.

Happily the music is of an equal calibre, with the Orchestra of Scottish Opera in absolutely outstanding form from the first bars of a very sprightly baroque-scale overture. Lisa Milne, a particularly voluptuous Semele, sings with great fire and passion, as well as with a wonderfully controlled beauty of tone in a finely-drawn characterisation of the sensuous and vainly ambitious heroine. Of her many captivating moments, the long, ravishing phrases of her second act aria O Sleep, Why Dost Thou Leave Me? with cello obbligato beautifully played by Stephen Adam, was perhaps the highlight of the performance. Jeremy Ovenden's Jupiter is another vocal tour de force. The wonderfully refined line of his Where'er You Walk and fabulously clean and impressive coloratura of the aria before it, I Must With Speed Amuse Her, are only two examples of his flawless and stylish singing.

Susan Bickley in her dual roles of Juno and Ino and Kate Royal as Iris add some moving moments, while Michael George delivers a darkly beautiful Leave Me Loathsome Light as Somnus the god of sleep. The singers of Scottish Opera Chorus are excellent throughout, adding a final touch of charm which makes their impending dismissal seem all the more appalling.

In charge of all this was Christian Curnyn, a young Glasgow-born conductor with refined direction, and a sensitive understanding of Handelian style.

HADYN: THE SEASONS

RENE JACOBS/FRIEBURG BAROQUE ORCHESTRA

(HARMONIA MUNDI) 5/5

THE final phase of Haydn's long career was dominated by choral music, with The Creation undoubtedly the most popular work of his lifetime. The Seasons, produced two years later as an attempt to repeat the success of that work, which had ensured his lasting reputation, has always suffered in comparison with its predecessor. But despite the somewhat less exalted subject matter - peasants rather than angels - Haydn's originality and inventiveness shine through this masterpiece, which, at its heart, celebrates life. In this new recording, taken from live concerts at the Innsbruck Festival, Rene Jacobs directs the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, The RIAS Chamber Choir, soprano Marlis Peterson, tenor Werner Gura and baritone Dietrich Henschel in a marvellously energetic and spirited performance. Superb choral singing is a particular feature with a hunting chorus that today might find itself on the wrong side of the law, as the accompaniment of the raucous natural horns leads us from the search for the prey to a particularly enthusiasticsounding kill, and on to a wonderfully boisterous celebration of the wine harvest. The soloists respond skilfully to Jacobs's direction with the glorious soprano of Marlis Peterson impressive in her burgeoning midsummer coloratura. Overall, an enriching performance, projecting the joys of life, love and living in a two CD package with full notes, texts and translations.

FAURE COMPLETE SONGS VOLUME 1

(HYPERION) 4/5

THE French melodie at its heart is concerned with sensitivity, perception and impression. Subtlety and intellectual refinement combined with the colours of extraordinary harmonies and beautiful melodic lines, present in song the French art of suggestion rather than precise emotion. Faure's output of more than 100 songs were produced over a period of 60 years. For what will ultimately be a four-disc collection charting the composer's progress from youth to old age, Graham Johnson has chosen the well-balanced programme approach in preference to a chronological presentation. And very successful it is, providing an interesting diversity of repertoire while retaining the historical sequence within each individual disc issue. In this first volume, Au Bord De L'Eau, a famous melodie and reminder of the composer's fascination for all things aquatic, provides the overall theme.

The singing throughout is beautifully delivered, with performances that are impressively alive to the variety of expression within Faure's music. Felicity Lott's Cinq Melodies de Venise, Stephen Varcoe's Mirage and Christopher Maltman's L'Horizon Chimerique, are the main song groups, with Jennifer Smith, Geraldine McGreevy, Stella Doufexis and John Mark Ainsley contributing equally imaginative individual songs, while Graham Johnson's sensitive accompaniment matches every mood.

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