"Sexy," as the advance publicity claimed, it is not, but there's plenty of sensuous music as mortal Semele basks in Jupiter's love, and intense drama as she goes too far in asking him to shuck his ...

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Even in 1744 Handel's Semele left its audience nonplussed. The premiere was given in concert during Lent but ...

Louise Alder was an unusually sympathetic Semele in this classy semi-staged production conducted by John Eliot Gardiner ‘Handel’s sexiest opera” is how this performance of Semele was billed. There are ...

Leonardo García Alarcón cuts Semele copiously yet reinstates two numbers that Handel rejected and never performed. Part 1 is given complete (paradoxically, where Gardiner’s recent live Alexandra ...

The award-winning Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras (MCO) look forward to launching another ambitious season, this time featuring four major international tours and two new recordings on their SDG label ...