Claudio Monteverdi was employed by Victor Gonzaga, the Duke of Mantua, but was dismissed from the court when his son Francesco Gonzaga took title in 1612. Monteverdi moved to Venice to take up the appointment of Director of Music at St Mark’s Basilica.
No wonder the 1744 audience was shocked by this “oratorio” which, far from drawing on Biblical themes, displays before us the sexual misdemeanor of the immortal Jove, with a mortal, Semele.
It might be a useful “rule of thumb” for every director of opera, to imagine the audience will be coming to the opera for the first time and view his own job as giving maximum clarity to the production he or she is working on.
