Eboracum Baroque return to the beautiful Rectory gardens at Wimpole Hall for a performance of Handel’s Semele with soloists, chorus and baroque orchestra. Relax in the idyllic surroundings with a picnic and hear some of Handel’s greatest music performed by top young performers specialising in his music. This work has a strong connection to Wimpole as it was one of the many concerts a former owner of Wimpole Hall, George Bambridge saw in the early 20th century and the gardens are a perfect setting for what promises to be a memorable evening of music making.

The Plot

A love story with a twist; the god Jupiter is captivated by the beauty of the all-too-human Semele. Inspired by the dramatic and colourful mythological characters, Handel’s music is powerfully seductive. Jupiter entrances Semele by promising that ‘Where e’er you walk’ he will arrange for trees to provide welcome shade, and that at her every step, flowers will blossom into life. She exults, with unabashed sensual delight, in everything that Jupiter has to offer, singing triumphantly of ‘Endless pleasure, endless love’. In this parable of over-ambition and over-indulgence Semele flirts with danger by demanding immortality and suffers the consequences, leaving behind her one life-enhancing legacy – her son, Bacchus, god of wine.

Tickets available via the National Trust website here

Semele – Lottie Bowden

Jupiter – Nils Greenhow

Juno – Alexandra Osborne

Cadmus – John Holland Avery

Ino – Laura Baldwin

Iris – Naomi Sturges

Apollo – Gareth Edmunds

Cupid – Tamsin Raitt