Musicologist Robert L. Kendrick on Hasse’s La Semele
What if one could take the complexities of a Baroque opera and boil them down to the basics? This idea is at the heart of the serenata form, a kind of chamber opera—probably semi-staged—that flourished in Rome and Naples between about 1670 and 1750. Here we have the story of Jupiter and his lover Semele, a mythological tale which in classical sources—like Ovid’s poem The Metamorphoses—is tragic: Semele asks to see Jupiter in all his divinity, something that no mortal can bear, and as a result is incinerated while still carrying her son Dionysius. There were at least five large-scale operas on this theme before Johann Adolph Hasse’s, this probably written for the local Austrian ruler of Naples in 1726.
The serenatas were composed for semi-private performances, without a large public but rather just intended for court officials and their families (at this point, 1707-1734, Austrians ruled Naples). Thus we have no printed libretto, but we know that Hasse’s librettist was the local literary figure Francesco Ricciardi. In addition, the number of singers was normally limited to three (as here) or four (by virtue of Juno’s impersonation of Semele’s nurse, we technically have four characters). Thus this would have been a (short) evening entertainment, where the guests could have enjoyed the abilities of the (unnamed) singers and especially Hasse’s virtuoso vocal writing. Haymarket fans will remember Hasse’s Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra, another example of the genre (also with a libretto by Ricciardi).
For all that this might seem simplistic, the librettist provided Hasse a good deal of characterization to turn into music. Far from being simply a betrayed wife, Juno (Giunone) opens the opera with a serious accompanied recitative (“Soglie celesti”), as she asks her native heavens why she should always suffer her husband’s affairs. After her fiery aria “Si altro augel,” in an ironic touch Jupiter (Giove) arrives to tell her that his tasks and his energy are such that he has no choice but to divert himself sexually. This opening serves both to mock the god and goddess gently and to delay the arrival of Semele. In his first aria, Jupiter (probably sung originally by a castrato) thus reproaches his wife for interfering with his pleasure.
Ricciardi also provided more subtle characterization than one might expect for such a tale. Originally, Semele had no desire to rise to godly heights (and thus ultimately be destroyed), but Juno (in the disguise of Semele’s nurse) eggs her on in praising her beauty and encouraging her to aspire to divine status. Although Jupiter has warned her of the dangers, Semele has made him promise her to give her whatever she wishes. Thus all three characters are fatally flawed, leading to what seems to be the tragic ending. Still, the serenata was a lighter genre than opera, and hence Ricciardi could manufacture a happy ending based on Jupiter’s reviving the burned Semele and making her into a demigod (in the interest of simplicity, Dionysius has disappeared from this version of the story).
Along the way, there are any number of subtle points worth listening to in Ricciardi’s text and Hasse’s music: Semele’s showy opening aria “Vago fior sul verde prato,” hinting both at her self-awareness of her beauty and also her aspirations; Jupiter’s absolute infatuation with her beauty (his aria “Pupille serene”); Semele’s suspicions of her lover’s unfaithfulness (the aria “Taccio, sospiro”); and the trio about halfway through the whole piece, “Morirò con la speranza,, as Semele intuits her ultimate fate, in which all three characters have strongly contrasted motives.
In a wider sense, then, the work rises above any characterization as an “occasional” piece. Musically, Hasse provided his characters some of the complexity, irony, and staged virtuosity which would also mark his work in serious opera, most notably in his high-level and subtle works with the librettist Pietro Metastasio. The only preserved score of La Semele is a manuscript now in Vienna—ultimately a result of Austrian rule in Naples—and probably of Czech provenance. It is not clear if it was ever performed again in either city. We are lucky to have the score and to have Haymarket’s enterprise in bringing it to Chicago.
About the author
Robert L. Kendrick is the Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago. Kendrick works in early modern music and culture, with additional interests in Latin America, historical anthropology, traditional Mediterranean polyphony, laments, and the visual arts. His most recent book is Biblical Families in Music: Conflict and Heterodoxy in Oratorios, 1670-1770 (University of Chicago Press, 2025). In 2006 he won a Graduate Teaching Award. Forthcoming work includes an edition of Renaissance Lamentations and Issues in Italian Madrigals. Other books include The Sound of Milan, 1580-1650 (2002) and Celestial Sirens (1996), and he has edited the motets of Chiara Margarita Cozzolani for A-R Editions (1998). He has advised or worked with early music performers, including Chicago’s Newberry Consort, Bologna’s Cappella Artemisia, and Boston’s La Donna Musicale. At the University of Chicago he is term faculty for the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, and is affiliated with the Center for Gender Studies and the Center for Latin American Studies. A member of Milan’s Accademia Ambrosiana, Kendrick received his PhD (musicology) and MA (ethnomusicology) from New York University, after a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, and he is a former Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. In 2018 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2019 a Knight of the Italian Republic (Class VI). A former autoworker and union activist, he is keenly supportive of graduate-student, adjunct, and contingent-faculty labor in academia.
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