Giulio Cesare

[chickenfeet]

I have been watching the DVDs of the 2005 Glyndebourne production of Giulio Cesare in Egitto. I recommend them rather highly. The staging is by David McVicar and it's bold; ancient Egypt meets the British Empire meets Bollywood, but it works pretty well, especially in the first act which has rather more humour than later acts. The singing and acting are brilliant. Sarah Connolly is an extremely masculine Caesar and the young Dutch-SriLankan-Australian-American soprano, Danielle de Niese, is vocally assured and just brilliant as an actress. She's also gorgeous and has one costume that would never maker it past Indian censors. The other principals are really good too. I didn't detect a single real weakness in the line up. William Christie gets excellent playing out of the Orchestra for the Age of Enlightenment though I felt some of his tempi were a bit slow and its already a very long opera!

The production for DVD is excellent. It's 16:9 with a choice of PCM stereo or 5.1 DTS sound. Colours are saturated, the camera work is good and the 5.1 sound is absolutely first rate. There is a fairly good mini-doc with the cast as a bonus. The one thing that comes through from that is how much fun everybody had with the production. frankie_ecap, I think your father would like it.

Comments

[arcana-mundi.livejournal.com]

Is it usual for a woman to play the part of Caesar? Interesting.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

In Handel's time many of the leading roles in opera seria were written for castrati. Caesar is an example but Tolomeo and Nirenus were also castrato roles. There are three options for a modern production; a soprano, a counter tenor or, dropping the music an octave, a baritone. In the Glyndebourne production Tolomeo is sung by a counter tenor and Nirenus by a baritone. Oddly, Sesto, a male role, was sung by a mezzo even in Handel's day.

[frankie-ecap.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much. I really appreciate this and completely agree with you from your description.

[damiel.livejournal.com]

Giulio Cesare opens in NY this week, but I'm afraid it won't be anything this gorgeous.