Sesto Will Make It: Giulio Cesare at the Met

Photo: Marty Sohl/Met Opera

“What do you think, will Sesto make it?” – “Of course, he will. It’s Baroque, only the bad guys die.”

I overheard this conversation in the ladies’ room of the Met Opera after the first act of Handel’s Giulio Cesare on Tuesday (5/7/13). Indeed, in 18th century operas the body count is low and the casualties are suffered mostly by the villains. But when the opera is four and a half hours long, the pertinent question is whether the audience will make it to the end!

Baroque opera is experiencing a massive revival, fueled by the efforts to attract jaded audiences with new repertoire and by the arrival of a surprising number of excellent countertenors. Although mezzo-sopranos and contraltos often deliver sleeker and technically superior performances in trouser roles, male altos inject the Baroque operas with virility and period authenticity and change the character dynamics. At the time of its premiere in 1724, Giulio Cesare featured three castrati, including Handel’s “best fiend” Senesino in the title role.

One difficulty with the Baroque opera is that it requires a homogeneously top-notch cast of soloists. Another difficulty lies in the dramatic interpretation of the rigid musical structure of opera seria. Anxious to keep the audiences well entertained, opera directors have discovered just how much action can be packed between the lines of those interminable da capo arias. In the days of Beyoncé and Lady Gaga, opera singers are expected to deliver intense physical acting in addition to perfect vocals and good looks.

Both of these difficulties were transcended during this Tuesday's performance of Giulio Cesare. This production was originally created by David McVicar for the 2005 Glyndebourne Festival (YouTube: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3) and resurrected this season at the Met Opera. This grand romp erred slightly on the side of excess: acting did occasionally interfere with singing and distract from the music; however, boredom would spell doom for this long opera, so the slight hyperactivity was well justified.

The visual environment was formed by a clash of styles: the Romans were represented by the late 19 century Britain, and the Egyptians – by the rest of the world from Morocco to India. It was in-your-face and a bit gaudy, but conceived with enough inventiveness and aesthetic sense to tease the eye and the mind quite agreeably. In contrast to the Salzburg 2012 production, in which glorious vocals struggled against an excessively dark and unappealing directorial vision, this season’s Cesare at the Met was airy and festive.

Several singers from the Glyndebourne production reprised their roles in this performance. Among these my greatest discovery was Irish mezzo-soprano Patricia Bardon, who was astonishing as Pompey’s widow Cornelia. Singing with beautiful warm tone and expressive intonations, she portrayed her character as a proud Roman noblewoman, wounded by grief and humiliation, and provided the much needed “tragic relief” to the vaudeville.

Cornelia’s lush sound was well matched with the slightly steely tone of her son Sesto (Sextus), sung by British mezzo-soprano Alice Coote. The beauty and power of her voice and the brittle intensity of her acting as a traumatized young man made the audience care about Sesto’s fate. Sesto's parts are among the most beautiful in the entire opera, and the duets of Sesto and Cornelia made me wish that Handel had written more ensembles. 

Another wonderful discovery was French countertenor Christophe Dumaux as Tolomeo (Ptolemy). His voice is rich and exceptionally clear, with just the right combination of sweetness and edge, which occasionally reminded me of Vesselina Kasarova. A natural actor, Mr. Dumaux makes it easy to believe that this creepy, sadistic, infantile Ptolemy would send Pompey’s severed head to Ceasar as a gift – this is what a psychopath would do. Mr. Dumaux’ insurance rider for this role must be long: he jumps, he fights, and at one point, he does a one-arm cartwheel mid-aria. Apparently (and not surprisingly) a number of his ardent admirers were in the audience and were howling with rapture during the curtain calls. (Indeed: listen to these delightfully disciplined Bach arias.)

The role of eunuch Nireno was played by Moroccan-born countertenor Rachid Ben Abdeslam. His warm, round, and lush voice was showcased in an aria performed as a rather amusing Bollywood-style number. In the rest of the opera, Nireno has little vocal presence, but Mr. Ben Abdeslam’s acting talents were used most effectively: always curious about everybody’s affairs, with his tentative gestures, mincing walk, and funny mannerisms, the ubiquitous Nireno spins a silent commentary to the story, enriching the dramatic fabric of the production.

The sole shot of machismo was injected by the baritone Guido Loconsolo as the lusty and treacherous Achille (Achillas), the commander of the Egyptian army. The bad guys – Achillas and Ptolemy – did indeed end up dead, but joined the rest of the cast in a happy finale, even toasting the triumphant Caesar and Cleopatra with a glass of champagne.

Now to the two leading roles. I can never reconcile my feelings about David Daniels. I do not particularly admire his tone; and there are countertenors with a better coloratura; and he never looks completely natural or comfortable in any role; yet there is something about him that is impossible not to like. His unquestionable lyricism and musicality will eventually seduce you into accepting him as he is, and this is what happened yet again in this Giulio Cesare (in which Daniels had made his Met Opera debut as Sesto in 1999). Mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly sang Cesare at Glyndebourne and looked assured and dignified as a Roman hero (see an article about her). I enjoyed her polished performance very much, yet I did not wish that the Met's Cesare were sung by anybody else but Daniels. His Cesare was full of self-doubt, which is perhaps not entirely unjustified considering that everybody was plotting against him.

Natalie Dessay delivered a heroic performance as Cleopatra and seemed to enjoy herself. If the Romans were played straight, the portrayal of the incestuous and dissolute Ptolemy and Cleopatra was often tinged with vaudeville. Cleopatra first made an entrance as a Bollywood dancer, then turned into a flapper, complete with a cocktail, sunglasses, and a cigarette in a long holder (which she eventually tossed into the urn with Pompey’s ashes), and eventually donned jodhpurs and boots. In one scene, Ms. Dessay simulated wearing nothing at all, lounging in a claw-foot bathtub and covered with only a sheet of shimmering fabric. Her dance numbers, vigorous and quite involved, quoted every trope in music and cinema with good comic effect and capitalized on Ms. Dessay's considerable talent as a dancer and ballet training. To appreciate just how much the times have changed, imagine an opera director say: "Ms. Caballe [Tebaldi, Sutherland, Price, Sills, etc.], we need to go over this scene again: your singing is fine, but we need to do something about your footwork."

The role of Cleopatra is a coveted vehicle for a prima donna, because the singer can use so many colors in her palette - she is a seductress, a damsel in distress, and a power-hungry player. In Act II, after a piece of very funny physical acting during Caesar’s bravura aria, Cleopatra finally gets her moment (and proves that Handel ought to be trusted). Sitting alone on a huge bed and lamenting her fate, surrounded by garish Disney colors, Ms. Dessay held the audience captive for ten minutes with four lines of lyrics (Se pietà di me non senti). After I realized that during this aria my thoughts never wandered away, I decided that the quirky diva can do no wrong in my book.

The opera would not have been so enjoyable without the spirited orchestral performance led by Harry Bicket. The orchestra sounded surprisingly “juicy” for a smaller Baroque lineup and even got to perform outside the pit. In one scene, several string players were seated on stage, and in the other, the concertmaster turned into a fez-wearing court musician and engaged Caesar in a call-and-response match during the emperor's aria. Throughout the opera, harpsichord, viola da gamba, and theorbo punctuated the score with elegant murmurings, which sounded unusually intimate in the huge space of the Met Opera.

See also: NY Times review 

Image from: Forbes review