Hey! None of this semi-ramide business! For me, it's the whole ramide or NOTHING! I'm very uncompromising in this regard.
Yeah, so this is based on a play by Voltaire, which is in turn based on the story of a legendary Assyrian queen, Semiramis. There are several other operas with the same title, including a mostly-lost one (alas) by Vivaldi, but this I believe is the only one actually based on Voltaire.
Semiramide is the queen, her husband Ninus having died. Is this the same Ninus at whose tomb Pyramus and Thisbe were to meet? Maybe! Significant parts of this do indeed take place at his tomb, so, I mean, I didn't think that story took place in Mesopotamia, but who knows? Anyway, there's a somewhat tangled love...shape: everyone thinks Semiramide is going to pick a successor, and the main candidates are Assur, a prince and a villain; and Arsace, a general and a hero. They both want to marry Azema, and she wants to marry Arsace (as does Idreno, an Indian prince who has a lot of stage time in spite of being very superfluous to the overall story). But! Semiramide doesn't want to step down at all; she wants to marry Arsace and rule with him. Only, whoa, the ghost of Ninus appears and demands a sacrifice to appease his spirit, helpfully not specifying exactly who should be sacrificed. But it turns out that Semiramide had conspired with Assur to murder her husband, he having convinced her that he was planning on abandoning her. So she feels guilty about that. In other news, it is revealed that Arsace is actually Ninia, her son. He goes off to kill Assur, but whoops, in the dark of the tomb, he accidentally stabs his mom instead. Assur is arrested. When he realizes what he's done he's sad, but then there's a triumphant chorus welcoming him as king, so it's all good...I guess. I think the message we can take from this is that six or eight thousand years ago, they laid down the law...in Mesopotamia.
Not gonna lie: the plot is a bit of a mess. There are all these twists that just come from nowhere and wait? What now? Huh? Also, I don't feel as though Semiramide gets enough attention to be the sort of tragic heroine she's meant to, and Azema seems like it's a more tiny, insignificant role than it should be. None of that really matters much, though, 'cause you're listening to some really damn great Rossini, and who cares why these people are singing? They're doing it beautifully. Great vocal acrobatics.
I do have one thing to say, though: I watched this handsomely traditional Met production. The presenter is Christopher Maltman (yay!), who explains that the reason this opera hadn't previously been staged for twenty-five years was because it's so dern hard to find singers who are up to its vocal demands. Now, presumably this was what he was told to say, but really now: why do they keep telling lies like this? It's almost as though they're inexplicably defensive about not having performed the opera in question for so many years, and they're trying to make excuses. But come ON: are you really telling me that the role of Semiramide is so difficult that there's literally only one soprano in a generation who can handle it? That's obviously untrue. Sure, you can believe that a smaller opera house might have trouble finding the talent to mount your more difficult operas, but it's not remotely believable that there was ever a time in the Met's history--at least since they became an established institution--when they wouldn't have been able to do any opera they wanted. Come on.
Well, here the title character is sung by Angela Meade. I first saw her as Alice Ford in Falstaff--my third-ever opera, if memory serves. She made a strong impression on me there, and she's really great here. Quite a stage presence. My other favorite is Ildar Abdrazakov (who previously played the title role in Prince Igor) as Assur; very sinister, and he has a good freak-out scene when he thinks Ninus' ghost is trying to get him.
I enjoyed this a lot. I've never not enjoyed a Rossini opera. I shall see more soon.
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