The Literature Network - Come on, light my fire

Come on, light my fire

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From: The Sunday Telegraph London
Date: 20041128
Author:MICHAEL KENNEDY

Semele

Manchester

Camerata

Handel's glorious gold-digger Semele is a girl who definitely does not know her place. Not content with being a king's daughter, she seeks immortality as the god Jupiter's latest mistress. But by asking him to make love to her in his true godlike form, not in his human disguise, she pushes her luck too far and is burnt to a cinder. William Congreve's masterly libretto on this subject, written for but not set by the composer John Eccles in 1704, was appropriated and adapted for Handel in 1743 with some modifications and the addition of lyrics by such as Alexander ...

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