BWW Reviews: Missed Opportunities Abound in SEMELE from Canadian Opera at BAM

The Canadian Opera Company's production of Handel's SEMELE recently came to BAM's Howard Gilman Opera House complete with a marvelous 17-ton Ming Dynasty temple, transported from the town of Quhou, China. It was central to the production concept by Zhang Huan, a visual and performance artist who admits to ignorance of opera.

While bringing in aspects of Buddhism along with elements of Chinese and Japanese culture (a pair of sumo wrestlers--don't ask...) doesn't do damage to this work--about the intermingling of mortals and gods--neither do they illuminate it. The director didn't seem to know what to do with the story of Semele and her love for Jupiter, so he brought in a modern, true story from China about a man who killed his unfaithful wife. The KD Wong Foundation was the underwriter of the opera, with the noble effort of encouraging cultural dialogue between East and West, but this production appeared to be more of the "never the twain shall meet" variety. (The production has been seen elsewhere, from Brussels to Beijing.)

This is not strictly an opera--the composer wrote more than 40 of them--but a work devised for an unstaged performance, with a libretto by William Congreve, best known for his Restoration comedies. In New York, we're used to seeing Handel in the stand-up-and-sing productions from the wonderful English Concert, most recently with last fall's ALCINA starring Joyce DiDonato, who knows how get the best out of this kind of music.

I'm not sure this performance would have turned out better with the orchestra, conducted by Christopher Moulds, poised in the temple and the singers front and center. But then we would have missed those wrestlers, a donkey with an enormous erection, a barechested maiden and some other touches that did nothing but leave smiles on our faces.

Is that what we go to opera for? Not exactly. But, for the most part, the physical aspect of the production outshone the singing, which was mostly less than thrilling. Tenor Colin Ainsworth looked the part of the god Jupiter--but showed off a small, tinny sound. Contralto Hilary Summers had good comic flair--but didn't really have enough voice for one role, let alone two: Ino, Semele's sister and Juno, Jupiter's wife. Countertenor Lawrence Zazzo was secure in his florid music--though he sounded too small for BAM's opera house.

Faring better were soprano Jane Archibald, who showed a pretty and silvery voice, with lots of dexterity, and bass Kyle Ketelson, who was vocally formidable as Cadmus. I wanted to hear more from soprano Katherine Whyte, who sang a sharp-eyed Iris.

I'm not quite sure of what happened at the end, where the director sliced off the last scene of Handel and brought in the chorus--which did fine work throughout--to sing the "Internationale." Was it a comment on the regime in China? I don't know. But Handel deserved better.

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Set design by Zhang Huan. Costume design by Han Feng. Original lighting design by Wolfgang Göbbel. Lighting recreation by Willem Laarman. Co-production of Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Brussels and KT Wong Foundation.

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Photo: Jack Vartoogian/Frontrowphotos