Semele
‘All our boasted fire is lost in smoke’
For priority access to tickets, join the family: explore Glyndebourne Membership
Sunday 23 July, 3.50pm
Wednesday 26 July, 4.50pm
Friday 28 July, 4.50pm
Tuesday 1 August, 4.50pm
Thursday 3 August, 4.50pm
Sunday 6 August, 3.50pm
Wednesday 9 August, 3.50pm
Friday 11 August, 3.50pm
Wednesday 16 August, 3.50pm
Saturday 19 August, 3.50pm
Thursday 24 August, 3.50pm
Saturday 26 August, 3.50pm
For performance timings and pricing please download a PDF version of the Festival 2023 performance schedule here.
About the opera
Semele is engaged, but secretly in love with someone else. Her lover is none other than Jupiter, King of the Gods. When he carries her off his wife Juno devises a scheme that will ensure a swift and brutal end – both to her husband’s infidelity and to Semele herself.
With a plot full of lusty Gods and beautiful mortals, where intrigue and desire take centre-stage, Handel’s Semele combines the drama of Italian opera with the choral splendour and richness of English oratorio. Ovid’s colourful Metamorphoses provides the starting point for a work that scandalised 18th-century audiences, a story of transformations, seductions and illusions that drew new sensuality and ecstasy from the composer.
Olivier Award-winning director Adele Thomas makes her Glyndebourne debut with the festival’s first-ever staging of Semele. Period specialist Václav Luks conducts an exciting young cast.
A new production for Festival 2023. Sung in English with supertitles.
Creative team
Conductor
Václav Luks
Director
Adele Thomas
Set Designer
Annemarie Woods
Costume Designer
Hannah Clark
Choreographer
Emma Woods
Lighting Designer
Peter Mumford
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
The Glyndebourne Chorus
Chorus Director
Aidan Oliver
Cast includes
Semele
Joélle Harvey
Juno
Jennifer Johnston
Jupiter
Stuart Jackson
Iris
Samuel Mariño
Ino
Stephanie Wake-Edwards
Athamas
Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen
Somnus/Cadmus
Clive Bayley
A Syndicate and Circle of Individuals
To find out more about production support for Festival 2023 click here
or contact our Director of Development, Helen McCarthy for an informal chat:
call 01273 815 032 or email helen.mccarthy@glyndebourne.com
Illustration © Katie Ponder