Handel’s Giulio Cesare: EMS 29 May

[doversoul1]

Lucie Skeaping looks at the plot, history, performances and recordings of one of Handel's most enduring operas, Giulio Cesare - first performed at London's Haymarket Theatre in 1724
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07cyfn5

[MickyD]

This should be good...I have the René Jacobs version, but have been tempted by subsequent recordings, such as that from George Petrou. What is your favourite version?

[doversoul1]

I very much enjoyed the programme. The Early Music Show definitely knows when to let the listeners hear the music and when to talk about the music and its context/reference. This programme would have been an excellent introduction to Handel’s opera as well as this particular work.

Just one thing. Did Lucie say that Tolmeo was killed in the battle? I thought Sesto killed him.

As for recordings, I like Alan Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco’s.

[aeolium]

I very much enjoyed the Glyndebourne production of Giulio Cesare by McVicar as a spectacle, but I'm not sure I would be so keen on listening to the Christie performance purely as an audio recording. I don't think de Niese is good enough in the role of Cleopatra, and though Sarah Connolly is a fine singer I'm not sure it's the best type of voice for this role. I like Mortensen and Concerto Copenhagen, with Andreas Scholl in the title role, and (despite what I've just said about the type of voice) I've a soft spot for the ENO recording under Mackerras with Janet Baker - Mackerras is such a good judge of tempi and phrasing that everything just seems natural and right. It's 30 years old now but still a classic imv.

Yet to listen to the programme - I'll catch up with it later today.

[jean]

...Didn't hear it all...switched on in the middle and very disappointed to hear Va tacito sung by a bass...

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[doversoul1]

...Didn't hear it all...swityched on in the middle and very disappointed to hear Va tacito sung by a bass...

That was Dietrich F-D. Lucie Skeaping played this particular recording to let us ‘hear how the transposing affects the music’. If you’d listened on, you’d have heard James Bowman singing Tolmeo in English.

Lucie played various recordings with few comments, which, I thought worked very well. Try listen to it again. I think you’ll enjoy the programme.

[jean]

I will - I didn't turn off in disgust, only because I was out doing other things, and listening intermittently on earphones.

[MickyD]

I thoroughly enjoyed the programme, but would have liked an extract from the George Petrou recording as well, just to hear what that is like. Should I be content with just the Jacobs or get another version? I must confess I liked what I heard of the Minkowski....I have his Ariodante and it is very fine.

[aeolium]

I too thought it was a very enjoyable programme. The extract with DF-D singing Va Tacito did sound odd, but it was still thrilling music and that was the best thing about the programme, that it mostly let the music speak for itself, in a range of different performance styles. And it brought back to me the sheer excitement of encountering this music for the first time - no wonder all its first run performances in 1724 were sold out. Se pietà di me non senti still seems to me one of the most moving arias in all opera.

One aspect which perhaps might have been touched on by Lucie Skeaping was the musical influences on Handel for this work. The plot had already been used in an opera by Sartorio in 1676 but I just wonder which of Handel's contemporaries, or near predecessors, had provided any stylistic influence for the music.