Handel’s Giulio Cesare in a staged concert performance at the Barbican, given under the experienced baton of René Jacobs, was something to look forward to keenly, especially for that tiny minority of us who think the work a great one but the enormously popular Glyndebourne production a vulgar travesty. In the event, it was rather a flat evening. Perhaps if one way of celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Barbican Centre were to be the introduction of effective air-conditioning into the stifling atmosphere of the Hall, such huge events (this was another almost four-and-a-half-hour marathon) wouldn’t seem so interminable. Perhaps, too, the extreme frequency with which Handel operas are being performed in London at present, with five in the past few weeks, contributes to the feeling I have that they possess less individuality than the pundits claim for them. Whether it’s Alexander the Great in India, or Nero and his mother in Rome, or figures from medieval romances in never-never land, or Caesar and Cleopatra in Egypt, what the subject-matter really is, and obviously, is power, love and betrayal, political and erotic. Any idea that these works might aid our understanding of historical figures is ludicrous. The main differences among the Handel operas I have seen lately have been in the proportions of satire and tragedy: sometimes, even usually, political treachery is manifested by comic characters, so intent on sprinting for the prize that they fail to notice the avenue of banana skins that they have to run up to get there, meeting their demise with brutal suddenness. Worldly ambition is a matter of the will, which means that those who have it deserve their gruesome end if they are vindictive schemers, which they nearly all are. Otherwise, they are magnanimous and tirelessly forbearing, as is shown by the broad and solemn arias which they are allotted in generous quantities. Passion is something over which we have no control, so crimes committed at its behest are treated more leniently. Within this not over-elaborate moral frame the action of these operas proceeds on its intricate but not complex way.
The generic effect may be heightened in concert performances, even ones where there is as much action as there was in this Cesare. The singers moved around a lot, especially the wicked ones, and the arch-villain Ptolomeo pirouetted with rage and malicious glee, and was elaborately killed by Sesto, slithering to the ground and twitching his last (before getting up and walking off with his score). He was taken by the countertenor Christophe Dumaux, who also played the role at Glyndebourne, where he perfected his repertoire of vicious smiles. Everyone played up well, despite which the evening gave the impression of being more a series of arias than a dramatic progress; the unrelenting applause was partly to blame, but so was Jacobs, who kept letting things go slack. The cast, none of them very famous, was a fine one, with Kristina Hammarström outstanding as Pompeo’s widow Cornelia, a pillar of dignified grief. I was least convinced by the Cesare, Marijana Mijanovic. Her voice is good, though not big, but her determination was evidenced more by her chin than her vocal interpretation, and despite a trouser suit she never for a moment suggested masculine majesty. The Cleopatra of Veronica Cangemi was an unadulterated delight, both in the sensuality of the Act II seduction music and in her agonies and excitements. The Freiburg Baroque Orchestra produced full-bodied tone, and it was probably the heat of the hall which caused the horns so many mishaps.
The next evening a very different opera dealt with infidelity and forgiveness: Verdi’s Stiffelio was revived by the Royal Opera in Elijah Moshinsky’s satisfying and traditional production, with immaculately judged conducting by Mark Elder, who is surely the world’s finest living exponent of these operas. Even he couldn’t disguise the fact that, if you didn’t know it, you’d swear that the Overture is to an opera by Sullivan you hadn’t heard before, with its jaunty rhythms and memorable big tune coming in to sweep everything before it. Quite a bit of Act I is like that, too, but the music for the leading characters, above all that for the erring Lina, wife of the pastor Stiffelio, is a major departure, intimate and searching, pointing the way to Traviata. Lina was Sondra Radvanovsky, an American soprano with a fascinating voice, excellently deployed, and adequate acting ability. José Cura downsized his personality for Stiffelio, though when he got angry it looked very much as if he would like to be doing his Otello as soon as he could; but his restraint, for the most part, was moving and effective. The incredibly brief final scene, in which everyone is gathered in church for what they expect to be a commination, only to be rewarded with a sober, heartfelt act of forgiveness, took the work on to a far higher plane than anything that preceded it: how wise of Verdi to end so abruptly, leaving an operatic audience to indulge in their least favourite activity, thinking.
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