Ying Fang - Handel: SEMELE, Endless pleasure, Boston recital 2020

THE SONGBIRD: Ying Fang was born in China and studied in Shanghai before moving to New York to get her Masters degree from The Juilliard School. She has sung lyric and lyric-coloratura roles in many of the world’s top opera centers including Paris, Amsterdam, Zurich, Salzburg, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Santa Fe, Chicago, Boston, and New York including roles at The Met such as Pamina, Susanna, and Servilia. Roles elsewhere include Konstanze, Adina, Morgana, Nannetta, Cleopatra, and Zaide. This is from a broadcast of Fang’s vocal recital at Bard College on February 13, 2020; she is accompanied by Ken Noda. THE MUSIC: Handel’s oratorio “Semele“ premiered at Covent Garden in London in 1744. It was only performed six times during Handel’s life, but regained popularity in the 20th Century and is now regularly performed in concert and as a staged opera. The plot centers around the god Jupiter taking human form for his affair with Semele, a beautiful self-involved mortal. Jupiter’s wife Juno discovers this adultery and plots Semele’s downfall by cunningly using Semele’s own vanity against her. At Juno’s persuasion that it will make her immortal, Semele insists that Jupiter reveal his full divine form to her -- he reluctantly agrees and his fiery thunderbolts destroy her. From her ashes arises Jupiter’s son Bacchus, god of wine and festivities.