Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #86443 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-02-07
• Rating: Exempt
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Box set, Classical, PAL
• Original language: Italian
• Subtitled in: English, French, German, Italian
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 208 minutes

Synopsis
A performance of Handel's 'Giulio Cesare'. Richard Hickox conducts the Australian Opera And Ballet Orchestra. Recorded live at the Sydney Opera House in June 1994.

Customer Reviews

Beautiful and original production
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 equally effective in finding the more amusing moments in this long opera, and is doing them with great fun and wittiness: Cleopatra taking milk bath or the way Caesar finds out that Lydia is really 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 and 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 and Andreas Scholl have more beautiful voices, but Pushee is very impressive. He is an idiomatic Handel singer, with very good technique, and his coloratura is agile and 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, and 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 and has great charm and captivating presence on stage. All the arias are done ravishingly, especially 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 and half hours went almost without notice. And what a great opera!

Yvonne Kenny triumph at Opera Australia
This staging, full of darkness and Egyptian hieroglyphics, muscle-bound Egyptian guards and bald-headed flunkies, comes direct from a live performance at Opera Australia in June 1994, and represented personal triumphs for two Australian singers - Yvonne Kenny (Cleopatra)and Graham Pushee (Caesar). The whole, conducted by Richard Hickox, and 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, and 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 and 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' and '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 and panache in equal measure. He delivers the bravura arias of Cesare with accuracy in the long coloratura runs, and heartfelt sincerity in the soliloquy for Pompey (alma del gran Pompeo) and dall'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 and the trumpeter.

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

Glorious singing ... great production
I love the entire concept of this opera from the sets and 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 and the audience with charm and 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 and 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 and counter tenors for the contralto and soprano however well trained cannot divorce themselves from vibrato and 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 and I am sure you won't regret it.

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

Bu the way the bath scene is superlative!!!