The Metropolitan Opera Saturday Matinee – 03/10/2018

Sat. 1 pm. Semiramide by Cioachino Rossini. The tale, which inspired at least 65 composers besides Rossini, concerns the legendary Babylonian queen who helped a lover murder her husband and then unwittingly chose her own son as the replacement king. Hamlet and Gertrude, meet Oedipus and Jocasta. Although in some versions, Semiramide’s life is spared — the Assyrian legend has her disappear in the form of a dove — the Met’s John Copley production opts for a classically bloody ending: the repentant queen is stabbed as she intervenes in a fight between the former lover and the son. Voltaire, from whose tragedy Rossini’s libretto sprang, probably would have applauded. Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/03/arts/review-opera-royalty-murder-and-coincidence-in-semiramide.html