Customer Reviews

Handel - Giulio Cesare

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I do not know what all you other reviewers find wrong with this production. I find that it is the best Giulio Cesare I have heard to date. I know that most of the problems with this production stem from Peter Sellers Controversial directing of the stage and modernization. I find it actually charming.

And now for the singers! Jeffery Gall (I'll admit) is not the world's most ideal Countertenor, but he pulls the role of Julius Caesar very well. His chemistry with Cleopatra is amazing. His best aria vocally is "al'lampo dell'armi". Susan Larson (Sellar's Fiordiligi in Cosi and Cherubino in Figaro) as Cleopatra left me absolutely speechless. There is absolutely no glitches in her performance. It would be hard to find just one aria that she excels in. She witty banter with Nirena is very funny and well-acted. Mary Westbrook-Geha as Cornelia is wonderful. Her acting and singing combine to make a very enjoyable performance. Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson (Elvira in Sellar's Don Giovanni) as Sesto was beyond amazing (as with Cornelia.) The act one duet ("Sonata a Lagrimar") almost made me faint. Drew Minter's Countertenor Tolomeo was good but not great. His singing was acceptable but his acting was a little stinted. James Maddalena (Sellar's Guglielmo in Cosi and The Count in Figaro) as Achillas was wonderful. No other words can describe how good it was. His chemistry with Cornelia was heated. Cheryl Cobb's Nirena was greatly acted and sung to the extreme. I was SO glad that she got her often-cut 2nd act aria ("Che perdu un Momento) and she sings it to a T. Hermann Hildebrand (Sellar's Antonio in Figaro) was good as the small role of Curio.

The Conductor Craig Smith sets very good tempos and never exceeds what Handel has written. His singers don't seem labored by him at all. The orchestra is a good solid Baroque orchestra. Peter Sellar's Directing is very interpolative. He uses a lot of "song-and-dance" numbers/ interpretative dance in many arias and duets

My verdict: If you have to have one Giulio Cesare- get this one.

To my mind, this is the only one of Peter Sellars' productions which has aged well. I have it on LaserDisc, and it is one of the few operas my opera group asks to see again and again. It's clever and doesn't take itself too seriously in the wrong places. It can be incredibly moving; the Sesto-Cornelia duet is a heartbreaker. The singing is solid to exceptional throughout, no mean feat considering two countertenors are involved.

Part of the problem is that Sellars re-used this concept less successfully in future productions (e.g. Theodora). If you've seen too many such productions, the military concept may seem tired. But turn back the clock and pretend you are in the early 90's, and you may find that this production makes an ancient story seem very immediate.

I bought this along with the Malgoire DVD of "Agrippina", which features some fine singing, but less than inspired stage directing and costumes.

The orchestra in this production of Giulio Cesare is my only cause for concern. The orchestra doesn't sound crisp, clear and clean to me. It even sounds a little stodgy in places. However, this is a minor quibble, because the singing and acting are first class.

I won't add a lot more to the positive reviews here, except to say that this is a very entertaining and interesting production. Sometimes, I love what Peter Sellars does (Theodora, for example) and, sometimes, I think he goes off the rails. Giulio Cesare is one of Sellars triumphs, in my opinion.

Jeffrey Gall, dressed as an American president, is an excellent Caesar and he was in fine voice when he made this recording. Lorraine Hunt makes an excellent Sextus, she left us far too early in life! Requiescat in pace. Drew Minter makes a very interesting and entertaining villain with his portrayal of Ptolemy. I have always liked his voice, too. I think Mr. Minter is involved in teaching these days? The entire cast is good and there are no weak links.

I am all for productions of Baroque opera which exhibit conjectural Baroque production standards, as in the Niquet DVD of Lully's Persée, for instance. However, I am open to a modern and imaginative approach to production if the results are as good as this.

Those who like this DVD should investigate the Christie/Sellars production of Handel's "Theodora", if they haven't already, and the more recent Christie/LAF DVD or Handel's "Hercules", which has become a real favourite of mine.

I only whish a better director had been brought into the Malgoire production of Handel's "Agrippina", which musically, is very good.

Sometimes people just forget to put a theatrical event in its proper perspective,a much more harmful mistake that any director or performer can do,even in case someone disagree the way an old fashioned work of art should established itself again to new audiences.Besides I just observed some neglected points in previous rewiews;first of all,musical performance standard changes drastically,especially on early music field.Some of these singers are nearly pioneers;I just can't remember any virtuoso american male alto before Jeffrey Gall pursuing an international career like he did.So Mr.Minter(just perfect acting and singing his portrayal of a 14 year-old bully and abusive Ptolomeo)was one of the earliest Indiana U. graduates like a countertenor,maybe the first one,I believe.Just listen to Lorraine Hunt performance here and her Irene on later "Theodora",a much more mature singing.I not even think that was a period orchestra since Cleopatra and Cesare arias seems to be in incredible high pitch,a hard task to the best of countertenors.So that,in my opinion,listener should evaluate this production in its proper and righteous perspective.I loved it like it is;clever and enthusiastic entertainment.At last,I doubt singers are wretched in their clothes;Cleopatra got that dazzling evening dress in order to seduce her Cesar,so,no big deal.

I generally like updated/modernized staging of old opera... as long as the original story and the music aren't compromised, that is. This Sellars production is just plain ridiculous. Cesare is something of a Nixon/PeeWee Hermann look-alike US President on a state visit to a resort hotel in Egypt... who finds it amusing lobbing pencil (nuke missile look-alikes) across the dining table at a punk rock Ptolemy. Guess they were having a heat wave on the set as everybody's sweating like condensation machines.

Cesare is horridly sung by the Counter-tenor Jeffrey Gall. Voice isn't anywhere nearly manly enough for this Roman dictator role, and coloratura is smudgy to the extreme. He comes off like a whiny gay man! Susan Larson's Cleopatra is more convincingly acted and does a bit better vocally. The voice is rich and creamy, but not quite at home with baroque music. The best singing come from the late Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson's Sesto and Mary Westbrook-Geha's Cornelia. Not enough to save the show for me, however.

Dunno why Craig Smith would put up with this wacky a production... but then these are the days of the regies... There are some great scenes, like the duet between Sesto and Cornelia that ends Act I, but these are hard to come by. The great muse scene in Act II appears to take place in Cesare's dream and is neither well visualized nor well sung. So the 3 stars are on the virtue of Haendel's beautiful score and the singing of Hunt-Lieberson and Westbrook-Geha.

There are some trailers of other Sellars productions on the 1st disc. Frankly, I bought the thing for Hunt-Lieberson's performance (and had seen a great clip of the Act I ending duet before hand)... not sure it was worth it.

I come to this review with mixed feelings: On the positive side, the production quality of this 2006 DVD from DECCA is superb, even though it's not in widescreen, which is a shame, and the performances from a talented cast are both compelling in the manner of their vocal delivery and flawless in their stage execution. Set in a contemporary and imaginary oil-rich Middle Eastern nation, Sellers has outfitted his cast in contemporary (and in some cases punk) styles, gave them colorful costumes and scenery, and employed expert camerawork throughout to give this "Giulio Cesare" an immediacy that is quite seductive to the eye. The accompaniment from the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, under the direction of Craig Smith matches the performances and adds real depth to Handel's score which, as you know, can be a little dull at times, especially when we have little more than a Harpsichord for accompaniment in many of the recitatives. That's the positive side. There's a negative side, too. While Cesare is portrayed as "the unquestioned leader of a major world power," he speaks, in fact, from behind a podium emblazoned with the Seal of the President of the United States. Okay, a minor distraction. A bigger distraction than that is the utter contempt porcupined-top Mr. Sellars has for very talented singers, outfitting them in costumes that in one scene had Cleopatra, Susan Larson, and her assistant Nirena, sung by Cheryl Cobb, wearing blow-up pool balloons on their heads, and Cleopatra masturbating with the tail of her balloon between her legs and reaching orgasm while laid out on a lounge chair, all the while singing. It's one thing to cast singers in time periods different than the original authors, and with that, changing location and costumes. But where is the justification in making the singers look foolish? Mr. Sellars, like so many other contemporary directors, has let his reputation get the better of him, and uses his unique position to degrade and mock singers by casting them in outfits, here, that are contemptably demeaning and degrading. How Susan Larson can point to this display with pride is beyond me -- and I doubt she will. She may have smiled when she took her bows; but behind that smile there had to be tears. The porcupined one ought to be ashamed. This review appeared at OperaOnline.us

The 20 Century costumes, including swimming attire, are too avant garde for me. I would like to see the opera in a more traditional setting.

This would have made a decent video if it had been filmed competently but the video director chose to film everything in super macro close-up. I found it unbearable to watch!

It's a shame because the musical performance is excellent and Peter Sellars does a better job at staging Giulio Cesare than I expected. Of course, it's hard to tell since we can't tell what the stage looks like because the entire video is in super close-up.

I would recommend this video just for the music if there were no other choices for Giulio Cesare. But since there are several to choose from, you can do better than this. My recommendation is for the one conducted by William Christie.

I am surprised a big label like Decca would put out such a poorly made video.

If only one bought DVDs for the purpose of listening... and for listening alone...

But one doesn't. In watching an opera DVD, one wants to see the action illuminate and present the plot as sung by (hopefully) glorious singers. I'm not absolutely insistent on operas being set in the period for which they were written or in the period in which their plots are set. But if the only purpose for an updated setting is for a director to show that he's terribly avant-garde, a sort-of stage enfant terrible, I'm utterly uninterested. Silly and purposeless updating imparts a danger of making the opera plot completely ridiculous, the character interplay silly, and the internal logic of the opera as visible and present as a small puddle evaporating in the sun.

And this version of the glorious opera 'Giulio Cesare' (Julius Caesar) by Handel is unfortunately here subjected to the most senseless and ruthless relocation that is possible. I had the impression that Peter Sellars said to himself, "What won't they expect? What would be so outrageous that no one else would dare...? What would be completely nonsensical as a setting? I know! I've got it. I'll show them all."

Perhaps that will appeal to some viewers.

It left me actually so bored and annoyed that I haven't been able to finish watching this performance.

I recommend this transplantation of Giulio Cesare only for those opera viewers who eagerly leap onto every Peter Sellars'-directed opera DVD that exists, or who think that opera cannot be enjoyed in more traditional settings.

(The singing itself is very good. You could, I suppose, buy this DVD and close your eyes...)