The Opera Tattler

Reviews of Performances and their Audiences

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Category: Giulio Cesare

  • Giulio Cesare at The Met

    * Notes *David McVicar’s production of Giulio Cesare (Act III pictured left, photograph by Marty Sohl) had a fourth performance at the Metropolitan Opera last night. Having attended no less than six performances of the Met’s previous production, it was nice to see that McVicar’s offering is much less staid. The shifts in costumes must…

  • Les Arts Florissants’ 2nd Performance of Giulio Cesare

    * Notes *The second performance of Giulio Cesare at Salle Pleyel came together better than the first. Les Arts Florissants sounded more cohesive. The concertmaster did not break any strings this time, and her intonation was more accurate, but her playing for "Se in fiorito ameno prato" was still screechy and not beautiful. The horn…

  • Les Arts Florissants’ Giulio Cesare

    * Notes *The Tuesday opening of Giulio Cesare at Salle Pleyel was stunning. For one thing, most of the singing was breathtaking. Both low voices were lovely, these being Andreas Wolf (Curio) and Umberto Chiummo (Achilla). The latter enunciated particularly well, and his aria "Se a me non sei crudele" was strong. Rachid Ben Abdeslam…

  • Giulio Cesare in Lausanne

    * Notes * A production of Giulio Cesare opened at Opéra de Lausanne last Friday. The opera was cut down, and the performance was only three hours long. Emilio Sagi's production was on the traditional side, the setting looked like a Baroque take on the Roman and Ancient Egyptian worlds. In that sense it was…

  • Cesare

    The Met production of Händel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto opened at San Diego Opera last Saturday. This production was in San Francisco in 2002, so I was familiar with both the music and the staging. This was somewhat unfortunate, as it started off badly, Ewa Podleś, in the lead role, was ahead of the orchestra.…

  • Da tempeste il legno infranto (Act III, Scene 7)

    Da tempeste il legno infranto,se poi salvo giunge in porto,non sa più che desiar.Così il cor tra pene e pianto,or che trova il suo conforto,torna l’anima a bear. * * * I managed to get a standing room ticket for last night’s performance of Giulio Cesare, though I was somewhat intimidated by figuring out the…

  • Giulio Cesare

    The San Francisco Opera performance that I had been waiting for all season finally arrived, and I was not disappointed. Händel’s Giulio Cesare has quite a lot of beautiful and compelling music in it. It is an opera seria that premiered in 1724 at London’s Royal Academy of Music, and the title role was created…