Danielle De Niese, foto: Decca.

It was enchanting to enjoy the incredible, charismatic, soprano DANIELLE DE NIESE, in the titelrole in Georg Friedrich Händels (1685-1759) opera  SEMELE, conducted by Christophe Rousset, at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, Sunday July 4th 2010.

The Australian born, but now American citizen coloratura soprano Danielle De Niese has the charm, energy and the most enchanting and trilling voice to make the role as Semele to something extraordinay, she not only sing wonderful, she is too bringing layer of me. But she was not alone on stage. Together with her the brilliant mezzo soprano Vivica Geneaux in the double role as Juno and Ino, where she is playing two absolutely different caracters. In addition we enjoyed very much Claire Debono as Cupid and Jaël Azzaretti as Iris.

Four male singers did it outstanding in their roles. The famous tenor Richard Croft as Jupiter. The wonderful base Peter Rose in the double role as Cadmus and Somnus. Athamas was sung by the countertenor Stephen Wallace, who presented a beautiful voice, but unfortunately, not allways had the power to reach out. The small role, but importent role as Apollo was sung by Sébastian Droy. It seemed to the audience that they in the brilliant and very talented regi by David Mc Vicar had a lot of fun on stage. Which the audience enjoyed.

Christophe Rousset was conducting it all. Together with his ensemble Les Talens Lyrique, and the great choir du Théâtre des Champs-Èlysées did a first class job. The orchestra sound is good and both in the energetic parts as in the recitatives and slower parts I enjoyed the manye good details in the orchestra
. I specially enjoyed the string sound, and by making a counting up, I observed that among the 18  small strings and bratches, 15 were played by wimen. I wonder if that has something to do with the good sound from the strings. A positive signal.

After having enjoyed Christophe Rousset and his Talens Lyrique, that he founded in 1991, several times. I have the pleasant feeling that the world of old music have got one more conductor (and cembalist) of world class in to the group of baroque music headed by William Christie

.  The ensemble Talens Lyrique is at a first class level.

The staging by David Mc Vicar is giving posisbility to enjoy a lot of good details, where his musicality is challenging the soloists and the choir, and in this is the choreography Andrew George very importent. It was a pleasure to notice all the good choreographis details in the choir, included the hand choreography, and how well it was formed by the singers.

The scenography by Tanya McCallin was giving a good frame around how the regi was done, and the great ideas by using and lifting up the round middle part of the stage which could be partly lifted and opened, extraordinay good  lightening by Paule Constable, created different milieus as it was often needed. Last, but not least the beautiful and well functioning costumes by Brigitte Reiffenstuel.

Semele became a wonderful “complicated family” opera comedy.

Danielle De Niese sings Händel Arias with Les Arts Florissants and William Christie at a new cd - DECCA

If you want to enjoy more of Danielle De Nieses Händel singing, we can recommend her new Händel CD on Decca, it is wonderful