Giulio Cesare by Giovanni Antonini

I watched this production of the Handel’s opera on the website of French TV Arte. It was streaming video but my Internet connection was not so streaming with lots of stopping and skipping. Therefore, my review below might need adjustment accordingly in future.

This production has dazzling casts. All the singers sang wonderfully with each had strong individuality.

I prefer soprano or high mezzo-soprano to sing the vocally highly demanding role of Cleopatra. Cecilia Bartoli’s very Mediterranean mezzo-soprano voice can be heavy or low for this type of role. Her singing techniques are always very impressive with great range and capacity and the same token, they could be forceful, raw and simply too much when singing should be more natural and unforced.

I listened to some of her Cleopatra before and I was worry about all these things. But as whole, they came force as expected but also she showed wonderful lightness and great sensibility especially aria like “V’adoro, pupille” (yes, you better close your eyes while listening to this wonderful rendition.) As always, I had to be amazed and impressed with her ability to create profound vocal drama in some of the arias.

Andreas Scholl as Cesare was wonderful but somehow his singing was little less magnificent than when he sang in his previous production. The clarity of his voice felt diminished little.

I adore both Anne Sofie von Otter and Philippe Jaroussky as singers. But I prefer much fuller and lower voice ranges for these roles than theirs. Simply Otter’s light voice couldn’t capture the weight of her role.  But nevertheless, they sang their roles wonderfully specially their duet was very emotional. (And watching these two singers I most admire singing together simply tickles my soft spot.)

My favorite Cleopatra’s crazy half-brother, Christophe Dumaux who sang Tolomeo was in his best condition. His Tolomeo is always exciting to watch and listen. This character must be the most fun to play with. This time, he looked like a dangerous gang leader with ancient tattoos and bladed hairstyle with snakeskin jacket and pants.  This time, he had less action and more masturbation (!)

The rest of the singers such as Ruben Drole, Jochen Kowalski and Peter Kalman sang very well.

This is one of the best operas with gorgeous castings, so how it could be ended up with such cheap stage direction? I felt so sorry for the singers who have to take these stupid acting directions seriously. Especially when Ann Sofie von Otter had to put her head into the mouth of the giant cheap toy crocodile or the fake cheap toy snake Philippe Jaroussky had to handle more than Lorraine Hunt Lieberson once did. And Cecilia Bartorini had to act sexy while riding on the rocket like Dr. Strange Love when she only looked a cheap prostitute.

I thought Peter Sellers is worst stage director but now he has competitor. At least Peter Sellers has sharp satire to his cheapness, but this similar stage direction set in 50’s somewhere in oil rich region does not even have it despite of the facts that it has some current political inputs such as Sesto as suicide bomber, hooding of prisoner Cleopatra, oil dealings and rolling military tanks.

But more than anything else, the biggest complaint I had with this production is the orchestration by Giovanni Antonini & Il Giardino Armonico. It was rather subtle and not very lively orchestration with little colors. I don't know how could these individually strong singers ended up with somehow such weak orchestration?