Closing its audacious 2024-25 season, The Atlanta Opera unveiled a production of Handel’s Semele this past Saturday, a first for the city. This inspired bit of programing served to highlight a season distinguished by a series of bold gambles by the company, starting off with a fine production of Mozart’s perennial favorite Die Zauberflote, and juxtaposed by well-intentioned yet unidiomatic performances of Verdi’s Macbeth, an opera better enjoyed by local audiences twice before. The latter half of the season found the company expanding the boundaries of its repertoire – beyond the introduction of new works through its Discovery Series – by exploring outliers within the standard repertoire: first through a production of Siegfried, the third installment of the company’s historic first mounting of Wagner’s complete Ring Cycle, and now Handel’s Semele, an unexpected foray into the repertoire of antiquity. The inclusion of the early baroque gem implied progress beyond this well-prescribed expansion of repertoire for it addressed, perhaps subconsciously, an old wound that Atlanta audiences have unknowingly inherited from the time the city first attempted to establish a local opera company in the late 1960s.
Legend has it that under the leadership of retired opera legend Blanche Thebom, the first iterations of an opera company in Atlanta (the Southern Regional Opera Company) staged an opulent production of Henry Purcell’s King Arthur (the work itself is an undefinable predecessor to opera as we know it today). October 29, 1968 was a night of firsts, marking King Arthur’s American premiere on the stage of the Alliance Theater, and simultaneously ushering the opening of the Woodruff Arts Center (then called the “Atlanta Memorial Center”). The production ran for a full month (!) and was a smash success among the cognoscenti who were dazzled by its theatrical decadence (it is still possible to run into chatty old timers who were there, many happy to recount tales of Merlin and dragon-drawn wagons crossing the night’s skies). The rest of the public thought otherwise, and, financially, King Arthur seemingly tanked the whole enterprise. Tragically, the Southern Regional Opera Company’s second offering, scheduled to grace the stage of the 784-seat Alliance Theater the following February (Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde!) had to be scrapped altogether.
Along with the woes of securing the appropriate venue (a struggle that plagued the company until 2008) the experience of breaking the piggy bank to stage a rarely performed early music work served as a cautionary tale to subsequent companies seeking to establish opera in Atlanta. One hopes that the current administration’s pick of Handel’s Giulio Cesare to mark its return to mainstage productions in 2021, and this current run of Semele, implies a willingness to mend old scars and further tap into the riches of the modern early music revival.
Juicy old gossip aside, offering up Handel’s Semele to usher (one hopes) further forays into baroque opera is a refreshing, yet unexpected move. By billing alone, Semele is not an opera, but an oratorio – Handel’s own retrofit of the operatic form (which he himself helped to establish in London) into biblical musical pageants in concert form. And yet, as The Atlanta Opera proved last Saturday, the work’s unflinching focus on the human passions that drive Semele’s ultimate undoing makes for compelling theater and an obvious candidate for staged treatment.
Unveiled ten years ago at Seattle Opera, The Atlanta Opera production of Handel’s Semele transformed the oratorio into a grand spectacle, going as far as introducing dance sequences tastefully realized by choreographer Amir Levy. The minimalist sets, designed by Erhard Rom, depicted dignified temples and breezy bedchambers, offering a universally handsome frame for the drama to unfold against. They contrasted with the work of costume designer Vita Tzykun, who flattered the gods (and their new groupie) but polarized the audience in her depiction of the mortal delegation, which dangerously favored sci-fi kitsch. Lighting by Robert Wierzel and soft grained filmed projections by Felipe Barral graced the sets without distracting an audience submerged in the joys of the Handelian aesthetic.
Serving as both producer and director, Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. General & Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun preferred a frank, natural lens to explore the relationships of his principals. Though he adopted some conceptualization (the excellent Atlanta Opera Chorus, proving their worth again in this production, amplified Semele’s inner feelings and desires in Act One,) Director Zvulun addressed the stilted elements of baroque opera head on, often times letting the thing be what it is. The spicier moments in the libretto played out mostly at face value, and things got freaky enough to require the counsel of intimacy coordinator Michelle Ladd Williams.
Making her debut with the company, conductor Christine Brandes was entrusted with the task of bringing to life a baroque score in the 2,750-seat Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. A former soprano who cultivated a distinguished career specializing in 17th and 18th century repertoire, she is uniquely qualified to navigate the challenges posed by this work, both to the orchestra and her principals. On opening night, her baton was empathic, particularly when supporting phrasings designed to assist an ailing soloist. Elsewhere, her tempi could get erratic, often undermining articulation, making for a fussy opening to Act One. Her propensity towards an intimate sonic aesthetic became a greater concern when applied to the conditions of the hall. The Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre auditorium is not only spacious, but it houses many white noise producing gadgets, the biggest culprit being the massive projector which makes the filmed element of most productions possible, and its unfortunate location underneath the center front mezzanine (“the loge” for you ASO snobs). These distractions often pool right above the middle of the center orchestra section, frustrating those hoping to partake in the feast of sound, implying the need for further compromise from the current state of early music performance doctrines.
Among the casualties in this acoustic warfare was The Atlanta Opera debut of Nils Wanderer as Athamas. The possessor of a singularly sweet countertenor, his sound is endowed with the sort of angst and pathos to properly flatter the languid lines of Athamas’ Act One aria “Your tuneful voice my tale would tale” and his duet with Ino, “You’ve undone me”. By the trappings of its method, Mr. Wanderer’s gentle instrument soon fell victim to the vastness of the venue, suggesting that his noble art may best be relished in closer quarters. Whether these concerns perpetrated the omission of his first Act One aria “Hymen, haste, thy torch prepare”, we’ll never know.
Less hampered by these conditions, mezzo-soprano Catherine Martin dazzled the audience with her versatility by juggling dual assignments as both Ino and Juno. The possessor of an imperious voice, which put Atlanta on notice at the time of her debut last year as Wagner’s Waltraute in Die Walkure, Ms. Martin impressed not merely in her dramatic interpretation of these divergent characters, but by imbuing her vocal characterizations to differentiate the young, love-sick mortal Ino from the petty and haughty goddess Juno. Assessing her efforts as a whole, Ino’s music, with its long, sustained melodies such as in the affecting “Turn, hopeless lover, turn thy eyes” flattered her efforts best. The exalted tone summoned to realize her Juno, while winning the audience’s favor, proved less adept in music requiring a certain mastery in athletic singing, evidenced by an earthbound delivery of the very famous “Hence, Iris, hence away “ where her scale work required audible simplification. Equally unbothered by the challenging acoustics was the Iris of debuting soprano Elisa Sunshine, whose antics graced the action with well-timed comic relief while cleverly filling out her vast surroundings with a decidedly lyric instrument.
Also working double shift was bass William Guanbo Su, who split his time between the dignified role of Cadmus, King of Thebes, and Somnus (god of sleep) in his Atlanta Opera debut. Fresh from unveiling his first Raimondo in Nashville Opera’s production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor back in April, Mr. Su’s acclimation to the early music style elevated an already favorable first impression. The emerging artist’s instrument betrayed the fortitudes afforded by youth, simultaneously delivering a quivery, cavernous sound that remained surprisingly pliant, even capable of an acceptable trill. These diverging qualities empowered Mr. Su to make a singularly convincing baby-faced, nighttime baddie out of the god Somnus. As the King of Thebes, he further impressed by artfully molding his sonorous and curiously bright bass (his art may yet yield darker hues if allowed to simmer) to project the authority of a solemn Cadmus.
As Semele, soprano Lauren Snouffer offered an enchanting account of the Theban princess. An artist who made a favorable impression at the time of her debut as Susanna in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, she is back after a ten-year hiatus in a decidedly more glamorous assignment. She possesses many of the fundamental qualities needed to undertake a role written for Handel’s oratorio muse, Élisabeth Duparc, including the physique du role to convincingly praise her reflection for almost seven minutes. Her instrument is a fluttery, melancholy soprano of the soubrette brand, amber-colored and often capable of great pathetic heights. It enabled Ms. Snouffer to portray an impressionable Semele, vulnerable to seduction by the alluring Jupiter and easily manipulated by the scheming June. In her handling of both sustained melodies and her famous allegros (her Act One aria “The morning lark to mine accords his note” was omitted) her instrument boasted equal footing both in the upper and middle registers. She was not immune, however, to the terrors of the part’s more ornate solos, with the famous “Myself I shall adore” and the brutally testing bravura number “No, no, I’ll take no less” calling out deficiencies in her breathing method, forcing her to break apart the seemingly endless pages of divisions and variations into bite size pieces. Her vocal arsenal also lacked a satisfying trill, and excursions to the stratosphere were tepid and seldom risked. A palpable judicious approach discouraged a certain spontaneity which may have qualified her triumph more complete.
Laying claim to the opera’s most famous da capo tune “Where’er you walk”, tenor Josh Lovell scored a triumphant debut as Jupiter. A charismatic artist able to prance about the stage with disarming confidence, Mr. Lovell embodied the seductive dandy to the manner born. He also had the vocal chops to back up such posturing. His lyric tenor, though less powerful than sweet, is a luminous instrument made to glide the phrases of his introductory aria “Lay your doubts and fears aside”. His singing was distinguished by clarity, noble phrasing and no palpable strain, which carried seamlessly into his negotiation of florid music. His take on “I must with speed amuse her” impressed by its Elysian poise and natural execution, earning the evening’s top credits.
For more information on the remaining two performances of The Atlanta Opera’s production of Handel’s Semele, or to find more information about the company’s 2025-26 season, please visit: www.atlantaopera.org
-Daniel Vasquez