“Julius Caesar” by FW Opera

In my previous writing about “Handel’s “Giulio Cesare”, when I wrote, “…. this is the perfect opera for great night out”, it was just wishful thinking and didn’t think it would come true. And it did.

It was one of the programs played at Fort Worth Opera Festival recently. It was played at Bass Performance Hall, which is modern and very beautiful theater with chic marble icy white color tone throughout the exterior and the interior. The inside of theater is just like an opera house.

The stage setting of “Julius Caesar” was European and modern which also matched the interior of theater. Especially the costumes were impressively gorgeous. I heard that the costume designs were from the same time period used in the Handel’s premier of this opera which is a couple hundreds years earlier. (I heard that people at the Handel’s time used the costumes because they didn’t know how the ancient Egyptians dressed like.)

The whole atmosphere of the production is very European. It was very beautiful looking production not only the set and the costume designs, but also because most of the singers are young, skinny and good-looking. Also the stage directions are mainly borrowed from the Andreas Scholl’s production so it was filled with feel-good atmosphere with younger perkiness. All these things, not only visually but also the sounds from the singers and the orchestration, made the whole production something very presently elegant and beautiful.

Another good thing about this production is that they had three American countertenors.

One of them, Randall Scotting who played Caesar was tall, elegant and handsome. He had very good, beautiful full mezzo-soprano range voice. His biggest weakness though was that his voice did not have necessary force for this role which became obvious right away when he sang the first two masculine arias. Even coloratura piece like “Se in fiorito ameno prato”, it was beautiful and he had good trills but there was no any “ wow” factor. I thought he is more of lyrical singer because he sang better in the last lyrical duet with Ava Pine. In fact, their duet sounded much more beautiful than the same duet by Inger Dam-Jensen/Andreas Scholl whom I consider as the top of the tops.

Texan soprano, Ava pine who played Cleopatra also looked so beautiful and elegant in her gorgeous princess-like dresses. She had very beautiful crystal texture voice. The problem in her voice was that the higher she sings, it gets more beautiful but also more shallowly in sound. However, when she sang the sad, dramatic arias with her lower soprano range in the later part of the opera, her voice became much richer, appealing and real.

Another countertenor, Jose Alvarez sang the Ptolemy, Cleopatra’s half-brother and rival over the throne. He was handsome with the good mezzo-soprano range voice. He was the best actor in the production and he drew more laughter from the audience playing brutal obnoxious boy king.

The strongest singers in this production were Meredith Arwady (contralto) and Michael Maniaci (countertenor) who played the saddest mother and the son, Cornelia and Sextus. Meredith nailed all her arias with her strong and beautiful voice so wonderfully and never let the audience’s attention slipped away.

Physically, Michael Maniaci might be the closest to castrato singer. According to what I read, because of his hormonal generic disease, his vocal cord didn’t develop as ordinary male. So he talks and sings as soprano.

Previously he played Nirenus in the Andreas Scholl’s production. I also watched some videos of him previously and his singing didn’t give me any strong impression. But on the live stage, he sounded so much better. His voice was very rich, beautiful and strong. Also like Meredith, he put so much passion in his singing.

I loved the orchestration conducted by Daniel Beckwith. His orchestration didn’t have any excess of sound and never became cheesy. It was very simple, elegant, soft and beautiful.

Over all, this production was much higher quality than I expected and very enjoyable to watch and listen. Yes, I had great night out.