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Giulio Cesare - Handel [1994]

Starring: Australian Opera and Ballet Orch, Yvonne Kenny, Graham Pushee, Andrew Dalton, Elizabeth Campbell
Format: Box set PAL
Released: 07 Feb 2005
RRP: £29.99
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

Glorious singing ... great production - By: David M. Calvert-Orange, 22 Sep 2007
I love the entire concept of this opera from the sets & wonderful Egyptian artefacts that give the production a sense of the correct time, to the use of counter tenors with superlative voices.

Caesar's aria with the violin is a masterpiece. I have never seen a performance like it. Caesar plays with the fiddle & the audience with charm & wit as well as thrilling with his sublime voice, hitting notes in a way that no contralto could ever achieve.

If you like the sound of a good counter tenor then this is the production for you. For me Baroque music is made for this sound & when directors use female voices it somewhat spoils the sound!!

I am afraid I feel the same way about Church music, the voices have to be male, both treble & counter tenors for the contralto & soprano however well trained cannot divorce themselves from vibrato & timbre that for me is just inappropriate.

I have added this to my eulogy on this performance of Handel's masterpiece to demonstrate the direction from which I am comming. Others might prefer the 'richness' of the contralto which in other operas is wonderful ... but for me not in this.

I hope this was helpful to you BUT please give this one a try & I am sure you won't regret it.

I am now going to buy the Andreas Scholl version & see if that an compete with this. It will have to go a long way to beat the sets & costumes alone.

Bu the way the bath scene is superlative!!!
Beautiful and original production - By: , 04 Mar 2005
This piece was written as a typical opera seria. The director, Francisco Negrin does a great job in emphasizing the tragic moments, like Caesar lamenting aria Alma del gran Pompeo, or the sorrowful arias of Pompeo's widow - Cornelia. But Negrin is equallly effective in finding the more amusing moments in this long opera, & is doing them with great fun & wittiness: Cleopatra taking milk bath or the way Caesar finds out that Lydia is reallly Cleopatra are two examples. Anthony Baker's designs are beautiful without being too loaded: they are very effective in portraying the ambiance of the various scenes. Gregory Nash's choreography is original & the dancers are great.

Richard Hickox conducts expertly the Australian opera orchestra, although I prefer period instruments in this piece. The title role is taken by the Australian countertenor Graham Pushee. David Daniels & Andreas Scholl have more beautiful voices, but Pushee is very impressive. He is an idiomatic Handel singer, with very good technique, & his coloratura is agile & smooth. The highlights of his performance are the hunting aria Va tacito e nascosto with horn obligato, the breathtaking second act aria Se in fiorito ameno prato with violin solo, & the third act big aria Aure, deh, per pieta.

Another Australian singer, Yvonne Kenny, does the role of Cleopatra. I love her velvety soprano. She is a skilled Baroque singer too & has great charm & captivating presence on stage. All the arias are done ravishingly, especiallly the second act aria V'adoro pupille (the decor here is wonderful, with the little orchestra on stage according to Handel's instructions). The famous third act aria Piangero is outstanding.

All other singers in the cast are good to very good, although Elizabeth Campbell in the role of Sextus has a "strange" accent.

I highly enjoyed watching this DVD. 3 & half hours went almost without notice. And what a great opera!

Yvonne Kenny triumph at Opera Australia - By: Mr Richard Fitzsimmons, 01 Mar 2005
This staging, full of darkness & Egyptian hieroglyphics, muscle-bound Egyptian guards & bald-headed flunkies, comes direct from a live performance at Opera Australia in June 1994, & represented personal triumphs for two Australian singers - Yvonne Kenny (Cleopatra)and Graham Pushee (Caesar). The whole, conducted by Richard Hickox, & well played by the modern-instrument Australian Opera orchestra, is the only full rendition of Handel's masterpiece opera currently available.

If only, however, the rest of the cast were up to the standards of the two principals. Andrew Dalton (Tolomeo) has a sweet sounding countertenor, but hardly the right amount of menace or effeminacy that the role demands. Stephen Bennet (Achillas) has an efficient bass baritone but not again the real amount of menace for a villainous Egyptian; Rosemary Gunn rather warbles as Pompey's widow Cornelia, & Elizabeth Campbell as Sesto has a lot to do to convince in the breeches role played in the original by an artist such as Durastanti.

The staging is merely a vehicle for the talents of Kenny & Pushee who both deliver committed if not flawless performances. Kenny is at times a delightfully coquettish Cleopatra particularly in her early scenes masquerading as Lydia, a servant girl. She delivers the set-piece arias such as 'Piangero' & 'Da tempeste' with elan, though her duet with Pushee at the end of Act 3 is a little sloppy. Pushee's countertenor may not be the sweetest around, but his is a chameleon voice capable of great subtlety & panache in equal measure. He delivers the bravura arias of Cesare with accuracy in the long coloratura runs, & heartfelt sincerity in the soliloquy for Pompey (alma del gran Pompeo) & dalll'ondoso periglio just as he is washed up on the Egyptian shore after battling Tolomeo's men. His 'battle' with the lead violinist in Se in fiorito (Act 2) is wonderfully reminiscent of the apocryphal contest between the castrato Farinelli & the trumpeter.

The whole is complemented with atmospheric sets & some stylish choreography, & is delivered virtuallly complete in Italian with subtitles. As a whole this is a good performance & experience of baroque opera performed by a solid, if not outstanding, cast with clear purpose & direction.