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| Handel: Giulio Cesare – Zheng Jiang, Owen Willetts, Jess Dandy – The Grange Competition (Picture: Richard Hubert Smith) |
Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto; Tim Mead, Sarah Brady, Jess Dandy, Zheng Jiang, James Atkinson, director: David Alder, Early Opera Firm, conductor Christian Curnyn; The Grange Competition
Reviewed 25 June 2026
Fantastically satisfying musical performances all spherical from a forged who enter with a will into director David Alden’s eclectic imaginative and prescient, clearly responding to his strategy irrespective of how scattershot the concepts.
When watching fashionable productions of Handel’s Giulio Cesare it’s straightforward to get a bit blazé. However it’s price remembering fairly how far we’ve got come. New York Metropolis Opera’s ground-breaking manufacturing of the work with Beverly Sills dazzling as Cleopatra and a bass Cesare (Norman Treigle), got here in 1966, the primary uncut efficiency (in fashionable occasions) with voices on the right pitch was on the Barber Institute in Birmingham in 1972, then English Nationwide Opera’s manufacturing directed by John Copley, performed by Charles Mackerras with Janet Baker and Valerie Masterson got here in 1978. This was lower, however sympathetically, and Copley’s manufacturing was moderately stately but it demonstrated that any such opera belonged within the fashionable opera home. By 2005, at Glyndebourne, David McVicar’s manufacturing had the arrogance to reinvent the work with out doing it violence and we now had interval devices within the pit.
Veteran director David Alden‘s profession has paralleled a lot of this timeline. He started directing at Opera Omaha within the Seventies and his first European manufacturing was Verdi’s Rigoletto for Scottish Opera within the late Seventies (and sure, I used to be there). He turned well-known (notorious) for his productions at ENO throughout the powerhouse period and I bear in mind his manufacturing of Handel’s Ariodante as being a strong instance of the best way fashionable theatre route might be delivered to Handel.
Alden’s enthusiasm for Handel appears undimmed and the Grange Competition invited him to direct a brand new manufacturing of Handel’s Giulio Cesare at this 12 months’s pageant. It seems to be the primary time Alden has directed by work. We caught the ultimate efficiency on 25 June 2026. Christian Curnyn performed the Early Opera Firm with Tim Mead as Giulio Cesare, Sarah Brady as Cleopatra, Hugh Reducing as Tolomeo, Jess Dandy as Cornelia, Zheng Jiang as Sesto, James Atkinson as Achilla, Owen Willetts as Nireno, and Tristan Hambleton as Curio. Designs had been by Jon Morrell, motion by Tim Claydon and lighting by Matthew Richardson. There was no refrain (the choral numbers had been sung by the ensemble), however there was a motion group of 5. Continuo was offered by Oliver John Ruthven (harpsichord), Eligio Quinteiro (theorbo) and Andrew Skidmore (cello).
Giulio Cesare is a protracted opera. When English Touring Opera carried out it uncut in 2017 they unfold it over two evenings (a courageous experiment, see my evaluate). On the Grange it was carried out lower (in fact) with one interval, mid-way via Act Two.
Alden and Morrell’s strategy to the work appears to have concerned a whole lot of free affiliation. Egypt, proper? So Nireno (Owen Willetts) was a mummy, there have been numerous Historic Egyptian symbols, Tolomeo’s (Hugh Reducing) backyard was filled with oppressive crops and harmful animals (together with snakes). When, on the finish of Act Two, Sarah Brady’s Cleopatra says she’s dying (a metaphorical flip of phrase), the jackal-headed god appeared to row her to the underworld, and elsewhere within the opera she had a fascination with asps! Costumes had been equally eclectic with completely different frames of reference. Curio (Owen Willetts) was an actual Roman centurion, however Cesare (Tim Mead) appeared caught within the mid-Twentieth century, while Sesto (Zheng Jiang) was a schoolboy who when girding himself for motion, dressed as an American footballer!
The entire strategy felt a bit scattershot, and moderately jogged my memory of the worst of Eighties and Nineties opera route. Some scenes had been (intentionally) humorous such because the musical chairs throughout Tolomeo and Cesare’s first assembly. Different moments had been discovered humorous by the viewers however I used to be unclear whether or not Alden meant this. The consequence was busy, with the stage practically at all times filled with color and motion. The hardworking motion group had been continuously used. Some selections had been clearly sensible: the opening scenes of Act Three had been performed in entrance of the curtain as a result of the set for Cesare’s emergence from the ocean was advanced. But, given the curtain, Alden couldn’t resist a collection of gags with singers crawling beneath it and failing to search out the cut up within the curtains. Not for the primary time, I felt that non-English administrators must be given a crash course in English humorous references (curtain gags are pure Morecambe & Sensible).
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| Handel: Giulio Cesare – Hugh Reducing, Sarah Brady – The Grange Competition (Picture: Richard Hubert Smith) |
What made the night work for me was the sheer high quality of the musico-dramatic performances. No matter was taking place on stage, and no matter you considered it, Alden and Curnyn drew profoundly satisfying accounts from every of the soloists.
Tim Mead sang Cesare with an enviably full and even tone, making every of the arias a profoundly satisfying expertise. He may swagger in addition to the following man, however he was additionally giddily in love and made this opera’s emphasis on Cesare the person work properly. ‘Va tacito’ was very good (with terrific horn solo from Ursula Paludan Monberg), a lot so that you simply moderately regretted all of the musical chairs shenanigans as detracting from this. Besides that for all of the chaos round him, Mead held our consideration totally. But on the finish of Act Two, when the assault comes, he was all vivid vigour and bravura. His reappearance in Act Three, on a pile of rubble, was touching and once more Mead held our consideration regardless of loads of different goings on. All in all this was a most satisfying all spherical efficiency and I merely needed extra please. Can somebody discover a manner for Tim Mead to sing the function full!
Sarah Brady was introduced as being unwell, however she sounded something however. In her opening scene, she sparred admirably with the Tolomeo of Hugh Reducing. Right here she lower an curiously androgynous look however this was changed by one thing extra vamp-ish for ‘Lidia’. Alden’s strategy to the character is perhaps typified by Brady carrying a Louise Brooks sort black bob wig. For the scenes with Tim Mead’s Cesare she was very a lot the sloe-eyed vamp. What made this work was the electrical energy between Mead and Brady, in order that unusually Cesare and Cleopatra’s relationship honest crackled. ‘V’adoro pupille’ was in some methods disappointing. The 9 solo devices had been merely within the pit (although the sounds had been magical), and the visuals appeared to reference cabaret greater than the rest. However Brady’s efficiency was terrific. However then, with the assault on Cesare, Brady deepened the character. ‘Per pieta’ and ‘Piangero’ had been each, of their manner, utterly knock out with barely a gimmick on stage. And Brady developed Cleopatra’s character arc in a satisfying manner so these weren’t simply showpieces. Then on the finish, after extra attractive enjoyable with Cesare, the pair dazzled.
Hugh Reducing was a delightfully slutty Tolomeo who, at occasions, appeared virtually a villain out of a Batman movie (notably the inexperienced outfit which matched the crops in his backyard). Reducing was clearly having nice enjoyable, but additionally managed to make the person creepy. And this was allied to a superb musical efficiency, demonstrating not solely his technical talent with Handel however his confidence in constructing Handel’s musico-dramatic world.
Jess Dandy, in a considerably dowdy Nineteen Fifties-style outfit, lower a standard determine at first. But although sober and critical, she was feisty too and for a second in Act One I questioned whether or not Alden was going to go down a much less standard dramatic route. This didn’t occur, however Dandy introduced nice selection to what generally is a considerably sombre character arc. Her duet of farewell with Zheng Jiang’s Sesto was profoundly transferring, but as Act Two progressed, Dandy’s Cornelia appeared to dissociate and by the top of the opera she was on the bottle. That stated, in direction of the top of the opera you felt that Alden had misplaced curiosity within the Cornelia/Sesto character arc and when Sesto killed Tolomeo in Act Three it was performed merely in dumb present.
Zheng Jiang made an enticing Sesto, creating an earnest and keen schoolboy. Jiang’s tone was heat but mild, and positively very fluent within the quicker numbers. His strategy to Sesto’s bravura passagework had a lightness of contact and fleetness to it that made the character much less intense than a full, feminine mezzo-soprano voice. But in direction of the top, denied an actual dénouement, Jiang was left to posture carrying his American soccer costume.
The smaller roles had been all very properly taken. James Atkinson’s efficiency as Achilla was such that we welcomed him getting each arias. Carrying uniform and full medals, this Achilla was visually excessive and Atkinson’s vicious efficiency matched the cartoonish behaviour of his grasp, Tolomeo. But there was nothing cartoonish about Atkinson’s singing and I hope he will get likelihood to sing a few of Handel’s extra rewarding baritone roles in oratorio.
Owen Willetts proved admirably musical as Nireno, although hampered by his mummy get-up. Tristan Hambleton offered superb assist as Curio and swaggered admirably in his Roman centurion’s outfit.
Within the pit, Christian Curnyn and the Early Opera Firm gave a gentle and safe account of the rating, bringing out its richness with out luxuriating. We benefitted from loads of superb solo performances, not simply the horn, however Catherine Martin’s on-stage violin solo in Cesare’s first solo in Act Two, and naturally the varied devices for the muses in ‘V’adoro pupille’.
No-one, whether or not singer or instrumentalist, gave any trace that they had been acting on one of many hottest evenings on document. While I discovered Alden’s manufacturing considerably too scattershot and with an excessive amount of levity for my style, the musical performances had been all compelling.
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| Handel: Giulio Cesare – Sarah Brady, Tim Mead – The Grange Competition (Picture: Richard Hubert Smith) |
On the finish of the night, Michael Likelihood (the corporate’s outgoing inventive director, to whom the manufacturing is devoted) requested the viewers if they’d assist the manufacturing returning in a couple of years time for an extended run. The reply was a powerful sure.
However my thought is that the corporate ought give a vote of confidence to its viewers’s capacity to understand Handelian opera seria. Current the opera beginning an hour earlier, have two intervals and embody half-hour extra music, permitting us to see the characters in additional depth. How about it?
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