Semele | Teatro Auditorium Manzoni

Friday October 23 and Sunday October 25, 2026 at the Teatro Auditorium Manzoni in Bologna, the performance Semele is staged.

Amid endless pleasures and fleeting distractions, Semele (1744) tells a mythological story (the love affair between the Theban princess and Zeus, from which Dionysus is born) that unfolds like a piece of high-society gossip. The king of the gods could easily be a ruler, a powerful man who betrays his wife with a well-bred young woman (who is herself already engaged). The gossip reaches the ears of the divine consort through the talkative messenger Iris, and revenge is inevitable, even calling upon Sleep himself so that, stung in her vanity and ambition, the young lover oversteps her limits and demands the epiphany of Jupiter in his divine splendor—so dazzling that it reduces the poor mortal to ashes. The moth has drawn too close to the flame. Mythology becomes a satire of manners, as relevant in the 18th century as in the 21st, and not only in places like Buckingham Palace. It is a sharp chronicle of scandals and the powerful, which also becomes a moral lesson—not so much against rulers, who are untouchable, but against ordinary mortals who believe they can surpass their limits, intoxicated by vain illusions and foolish pride. Ultimately, however, we cannot help but recognize the same flaws in gods as in humans, when stripped of their dazzling display of gold and lightning: Handel’s pen, in portraying characters and emotions, is truly relentless.

Concert performance
Oratorio in three acts
Georg Friedrich Handel
Librettist: William Congreve
Based on Metamorphoses by Ovid

Conductor: Rinaldo Alessandrini

Orchestra, Chorus and Technical Staff of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna

Chorus Master: Gea Garatti Ansini

Cast and performers: read more on the official website.