#baroque-opera

#baroque-opera

Handel's Semele is one of those works that refuses to sit neatly in a box. First staged at Covent Garden in 1744, it was billed as a new oratorio to slip past London's strict Lenten ban on opera. Yet what audiences encountered was no pious oratorio at all, but a glittering mythological drama brimming with erotic charge, satire, and Italianate arias.

Handel's Rodelinda is one of the Baroque era's most emotionally compelling operas, showcasing a world where courage and constancy triumph over tyranny.