CAUTION: performance for adult audiences !!!

Brief strobe lights will be used twice during the performance.

Theatre of the Warsaw Chamber Opera

Georg Friedrich Händel

Giulio Cesare, HWV 17

Opera in tre atti

Creative team

Duration

act I | 90 min, break | 20 min, act II | 90 min

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In the 18^th century, opera experienced a great boom. New works were constantly being created, but their lifespan was short. No one remembered what had been created in the past. What mattered was now, today. Despite its premiere success, George Frideric Handel’s dramma per musica Giulio Cesare in Egitto ceased to exist for almost two centuries. The work was revived only in 1922 during the Göttingen Festival in the interpretation of Oskar Hagen.

Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto premiered on 20 February 1724, at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London (there were thirteen performances in 1724, ten in the following year and eleven in 1730). The libretto was written by Nicola Francesco Haym. The opera has three acts and thirty-one scenes. It takes place in a short period, between September 48 BC and March 47 BC, in a specifically defined location. The events framed by two choral tributes from the Egyptians actually took place. Their detailed realization – in the form of recitatives, arias or duets – was largely created by the authors. Giulio Cesare lasts almost four hours.

Caesar has defeated Pompey and is chasing him through Egypt. At the request of his wife Cornelia and son Sextus, he wishes to make peace with him. He does not make it in time, as he receives the head of his already-dead rival as a gift from the Egyptian ruler Ptolemy. Cleopatra, who is fighting with her brother for the Egyptian crown, wants to take advantage of the conflict between Caesar and Ptolemy; disguised as the servant Lydia, she visits Caesar’s camp and wins his favour. The Egyptian people conspire against Caesar, while Pompey’s wife and son seek revenge. The first act ends with Sextus being thrown into a dungeon and Cornelia being locked in a seraglio.

Cleopatra, disguised as Virtue on Parnassus, stages a masque performance for Caesar, thereby winning his love even more. The next meeting is interrupted by an assassin’s attack: Caesar jumps into the sea and is presumed dead. Achilla expects to be rewarded with Cornelia. But King Ptolemy, who is himself in love with the Roman woman, sends him away empty-handed and mocks him. He orders Cornelia to be brought to his harem.

The third act begins with the Egyptians’ victory over the Romans and their ally Cleopatra. Ptolemy imprisons his sister and plans to kill her. Achilla, mortally wounded in battle, hands over command of the army to Sextus, revealing a secret passage to Ptolemy’s palace. Caesar, who overhears the conversation, launches a victorious counterattack. Sextus frees his mother and kills Ptolemy. At the port, Caesar is triumphantly proclaimed “signor del mondo e imperator romano” and Cleopatra “tributaria regina dell’Egitto”. The lovers pledge eternal love to each other and Egypt rejoices in peace.

Handel’s music is varied, full of emotion, passion and fire. It sparkles with different colours and rhythms: from sensuality and joy, through heroism and revenge, to sadness and pain. The driving force here is a continuous contrast, free of schematism and monotony. This is already evident in one of the first scenes, filled with different reactions to the news of Pompey’s death. Caesar is furious (heroic aria “Empio, dirò, tu sei”), Cornelia wants to die (her aria “Priva son d’ogni conforto” is a lament-cry, delicate and quiet), Sextus desires revenge (aria “Svegliatevi nel core” is sharp, with large leaps and a changing rhythm), Achilla is charmed with Cornelia, as is Curio. And it all takes place in just a dozen minutes, in one small space. Beautiful, poignant and sensual.

“The plot of baroque operas, though diverse and colourful, is surprisingly not the main factor – analysed musicologist Ewa Obniska. – The attachment to the great importance of arias seems to be a logical consequence of this state of affairs. […] it was in the arias that the emotions experienced by the opera characters could be fully expressed. The role of arias is also conditioned by the very nature of baroque opera, which is a theatre of characters”.

Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto is mainly about desire. Strong, consuming, pushing for immediate action, causing violent reactions (and magnificent singing). Everyone desires someone or something, right from their entrance. At the same time, everyone has a clearly defined goal. Cornelia desires death (first her own, then Ptolemy’s), Sextus wants to avenge his father and kill the king, Ptolemy and Cleopatra dream of power. Caesar desires Cleopatra, Achilla and Ptolemy – Cornelia and Curio likewise (though he wouldn’t mind Lydia, who is actually Cleopatra in disguise..). The only one who seems untainted is Nireno, the servant and confidant of the Egyptian queen.

The drama is also soaked with cruelty and death. An assassination is planned on Caesar (he saves himself by jumping into the sea), Cornelia and Sextus attempt to take their own lives, the young Roman tries to kill Ptolemy three times (succeeding the last time), Achilla dies in a battle (not counting hundreds, thousands of soldiers), and Cleopatra is also supposed to die. And the work opens with the news of the brutal murder of Pompey and the presentation of his head on a platter. It is also cruel that children want to kill: Ptolemy and Sextus. In the recitatives and arias of the latter, significant words appear every moment: “vendetta”, “morte”, “traditor”… The first may be explained by his name: the Greek ‘ptolemaios’ means ‘warlike’…

Love and happiness here can only be apparent. Handel and Haym wrote their work with an awareness of history, its development and its end. They knew that Caesar was brutally murdered due to a conspiracy. That Cleopatra was not his only chosen one and she also died tragically. That their affection, despite its power and passion, was based in some sense on an arrangement (Cleopatra gained the crown thanks to Caesar). That Cleopatra could not be anyone’s only wife, just a mistress and lover, though likely the most stunning. After all, these were different times, morals, and customs.

The music of Giulio Cesare in Egitto has many wonderful moments. For example, Sextus’s revenge aria “Svegliatevi nel core”, Achillas’s “Tu sei il cor di questo core” or the magnificent duet of Cornelia and Sextus “Son nata a lagrimar / Son nato a sospirar” at the end of the first act, Ptolemy’s “Si, spietata, il tuo rigore” from the second act, or “Domerò la tua fierezza” from the third act… But one thing must undoubtedly be emphasized: Handel’s Giulio Cesare is not just ‘pieces’, recitatives and arias, separate and unrelated, existing for themselves. It is a dense and dramatic music, saturated with emotion, intense and impulsive, dynamic, unrelenting from measure to measure. It needs magnificent voices, a sensitive conductor, and an open space.

Przestawienie od pierwszego momentu wciąga widza w wir toczącej się na scenie akcji, a jest to możliwe dzięki przemyślanej dynamicznej reżyserii oraz znakomitej obsadzie, która mogłaby – z powodzeniem – stanąć na scenach wielu renomowanych teatrów na świecie. Po przedstawieniu wielominutowa głośna owacja na stojąco, była w pełni uzasadniona…

Adam Czopek, okoliceopery.pl

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