Overview

• The production opened on July 1 at Covent Garden and will run through July 18 in London’s Royal Opera House.
• Mears recasts the opera as a brooding 1960s hotel drama, using stark lighting contrasts and modern props such as a sinister grate and a crackly record player in place of baroque spectacle.
• Pretty Yende’s introspective Semele and Ben Bliss’s nuanced Jupiter earn acclaim for their vocal agility and emotional depth.
• Christian Curnyn’s authoritative conducting anchors the staging with precise pacing and vibrant orchestral color.
• Critics remain divided over the bleak conceptual approach even as they praise the cast and musical execution.