Vivienne Westwood outshines Handel at ‘Semele Walk’

Semele Walk, the opening piece for the Tongyeong International Music Festival featured on Friday evening in its Asian premiere, was as strong as it could get from the beginning. Musicians loosely holding their instruments in rainbow-colored hair and dark eyeliner with funky garments appeared on the catwalk and seated at the front row.

As soon as the orchestra started playing the quintessential Baroque tunes of the great George Friedrich Handel, flocks of models sashayed the catwalk, flaunting their endless legs with super-short pants. As the show proceeded they wore long, glamorous dresses depicting Baroque married to 21st century East London style.

The 21st-century adaptation of Hndel’s opera-oratorio “Semele” follows the story of Semele, a mortal who falls in love with Jupiter, opening her eyes to self-respect and moreover, immortality, only to face tragedy for wanting something out of her reach. 

Soprano Aleksandra Zamojska played the ill-fated Semele, staggering most of the time on stage, seduced by Jupiter, played by countertenor Armin Gramer, who was portrayed as a “rock star meets ‘Interview with a Vampire’”― style god.

While Semele and Jupiter shared love, greed and feuds, members of the Team Changwon City Chorus and the Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop orchestra popped up from everywhere ― from the front row to deep amid the audience ― and sang, played, danced and finally walked up the stage.

The moment near the end when Semele throws herself into dozens of light bulbs symbolizing Jupiter and burns to ashes was a spectacle. It highlighted the rapid rise in Semele’s self-esteem as a women and her willingness to take what she wants at the cost of her life.

However, as much as the drastic alteration of 18th-century Baroque managed to keep many people awake throughout the show, it became more of an 80-minute promo of British punk design master Vivienne Westwood who provided her couture gowns for the concert. It was just a touch of Hndel, rather than the other way around.

The glamour of sequins and corsets with obnoxiously high-platform heels took away the charms of the refined and decent progress of the tunes, the mumbling of the singers as well as the magnificence of the master composer.

It was evident that the audience was googling Westwood and gossiping more about the fashion, including the silver-sequins Gramer wore, than Hndel nor the music as they walked out the door.

By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)