Semiramide, masterpiece composed by Rossini, will be performed at MET for the first time in nearly 25 years.
Maurizio Benini will be on the podium as conductor with a stellar bel canto cast: Angela Meade will play the role of Semiramide, the Queen Of Babylon, while Arsace – her lover – will be sung by Elizabeth DeShong. Javier Camarena, Ildar Abdrazakov, and Ryan Speedo Green complete the stellar cast. Tenor Javier Camarena is Idreno, Arsace’s rival in love; bass Ildar Abdrazakov is the ambitious Assur; and bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green is the High Priest Oroe.
Even if Arsace is actually a man – Semiramide’s lover, commander of the Assyrian army and unknowing son of Semiramide – he is performed by a woman with contralto voice (in our case the singer Elizabeth DeShong).
The title role was created by Isabella Colbran, now Rossini’s wife, but the famous Neapolitan tenors were not involved, and the tenor role is perhaps less important than before. The opera was a great success at its Venetian premiere at La Fenice Teatro in 1823 and was immediately performed around Europe.
What’s Semiramide about?
In Rossini’s mastepiece Semiramide is the murderous Queen Of Babylon.
Together with her lover Assur, the commander of the Assyrian army, she murders her husband King Nino.
With her marriage to Arsace, she hopes her soul will at last find solace and won’t be haunted anymore by the ghosts of the past. Her love, however, is misplaced.
Not only does Arsace love another woman, but he is also, as is later revealed, the son Semiramide and Nino. He is faced with a decision: should he avenge the death of his father – and thus become his mother’s killer?
The story is taken from the tragedy by Voltaire (1748) Semiramis, which in turn was based on the legend of Semiramis of Assyria. Semiramide (Semiramis) has been Queen of Assyria for fifteen years, since the death of King Nino, her husband and the mysterious disappearance of their young son Ninia, heir to the throne, both of whom were victims of a conspiracy.
MET’s Semiramide will be heard live over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network at 12:00 p.m. CT on Saturday, March 10.
