OperaDelaware on the radio: A Babylonian queen rules the airwaves

Rossini’s Semiramide has been in and out of favor since its 1823 premiere at Venice’s La Fenice, but exactly why is not clear. The work is packed with everything opera fans love: intrigue, vengeance, repentance, forgiveness, warriors, a ghost, a mad scene, mysterious Magi, illicit love — and fabulous music. And now it’s coming right to your own living room (or your office, car, shower, or wherever you listen), thanks to a special WRTI broadcast on November 17.

Rossini composed it for the great dramatic soprano Isabella Colbran — who was first his mistress and then his wife. A departure from his comic operas like The Barber of Seville, this serious work was also the last of his great operas in Italian.

He wrote it in 33 days and it was an instant hit all over Europe, but by the late 1800s it had pretty much dropped off the repertoire radar.

Rossini’s 225th

On November 17, WRTI-FM will broadcast OperaDelaware’s 2017 festival production. It was mounted to celebrate the 225th anniversary of the composer’s birth and was praised for its fine singing and nimble orchestra under the baton of Anthony Barrese, American Rossini specialist and OperaDelaware’s music director (here’s the BSR review).

Semiramide opens with a beautifully recognizable overture (often performed as a concert piece) that quotes the opera’s musical themes, revolutionary at the time. It’s based on a story that Voltaire took from an even older tale about a duplicitous Babylonian queen and her courtiers and priests, worshippers of the god Baal. The company includes Lindsay Ohse as Semiramide with Daniel Mobbs, Timothy Augustin, Harold Wilson, Young-Bok Kim and Aleksandra Romano (in a trouser role).

Tune in to the front row

For the broadcast, OperaDelaware general director Brendan Cooke enlisted author and opera pundit Will Berger to provide the kind of colorful background not always associated with opera. Berger writes the Metropolitan Opera commentaries and often cohosts their broadcasts or moderates the famous quizzes. He’s also written sparkling opera guides like Verdi with a Vengeance.

“I love listening to Will talk about opera,” says Cooke. “He’s so knowledgeable, but he’s also friendly and approachable, and our audiences always crowd in for his live preshow talks. Amazingly, he read the complicated Semiramide plot synopsis in one take!”

Joe Hannigan recorded the OperaDelaware production live in 2017 at Wilmington’s Grand Opera House, whose intimacy and acoustics are reminiscent of houses in Rossini’s time. Broadcasts like this make opera instantly accessible to those who — for any number of reasons — can’t see a performance in person. And this opera will be broadcast unedited, which Cooke says is “the next best thing to sitting in the front row.”

OperaDelaware’s 2017 Festival production of Semiramide, with commentary by Will Berger, will air on Saturday, November 17, at 1pm on WRTI 90.1 FM. During the broadcast, OperaDelaware will host a listening party on its Facebook page, with comments from the company, cast, and conductor.