When Eros meets Thanatos: the bedchamber scenes in Congreve/Eccles’s and Handel/Hamilton’s Semele(s)
When Handel’s opera-oratorio Semele (1744) premiered, Charles Jennens, future author of the Messiah libretto, described it bluntly as an “obscene work”. Admittedly, the sexual images of a text initially written by William Congreve for the composer John Eccles were apt to deter oratorio audiences of...
Tallennettuna:
| Julkaisussa: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/asf, |
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| Päätekijä: | |
| Aineistotyyppi: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Kieli: | Anglais |
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Arrêt sur scène / Scene Focus
2022
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| Aiheet: | |
| Linkit: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Yhteenveto: | When Handel’s opera-oratorio Semele (1744) premiered, Charles Jennens, future author of the Messiah libretto, described it bluntly as an “obscene work”. Admittedly, the sexual images of a text initially written by William Congreve for the composer John Eccles were apt to deter oratorio audiences of the 1740s, who were in search of spiritual nourishment rather than salacious innuendos of the kind one found in Restoration drama.Adapted from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (3, 251-313), the opera-oratorio traces the hubris of the young and ambitious Semele who insists on seeing her lover, Jupiter, in his divine splendour, in the hope of achieving immortality. Even though “bed scenes” are not explicitly mentioned, two scenes take place in Semele’s private apartments, where she voluptuously awaits her lover.This article examines the sexual innuendos of the script, in its original 1707 version and its adaptation by Newburgh Hamilton in the early 1740s. It then considers how the second “bed scene” may be read as the union of Eros and Thanatos, with Jupiter’s celebrated display of lightning and thunder. Finally, the article develops the meta-operatic dimension which characterizes the libretto’s two musical adaptations. |
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