Giulio Cesare Glyndebourne 2006

So from the shortest piece in the whole entire world, we move onto a full 295 minutes of pure genius, perhaps the finest opera seria ever written; Handel's Guilio Cesare.

I sat down this morning fully intending to watch half an hour of the recorded opera on TV...but with a steady supply of coco pops and aria after aria, delight after delight - I couldn't take my eyes off it.

The opera itself runs like a 'Handel's Greatest Hits' and this particular award-winning production from Glyndebourne is both magical and imposing; transferred to the 20th Century British Empire, but with definite elements of visual fantasy. If I could, I'd just paste the entire opera on here, it's THAT worthy - but I'll have to choose my top-favourites...

1)

First is Sarah Connolly's (aka Giulio Cesare, the tyrant himself) first real beast of an aria Empio, diro, tu sei which he breaks into upon being presented with the head of his defeated enemy Pompey. Real typical Handel 'angry' aria, but its wonderful all the same - perfect angular line for the strings, with ample opportunity for a few vocal runs for old Cesare. Connolly is supremely convincing too - great acting throughout this - with subtle changes in the vocal colour to just give us a bit more extra meaning...that's all it takes! Only two unsettling things about this clip:

1) She looks suspiciously like Stephen Fry in the Giulio get-up

2) Sound's like she's singing about Gnocchi in the second phrase...which just makes me hungry...

I'm disproportionately annoyed that my favourite Sesto clip (L'angue offeso mai riposa) doesn't appear to be on youtube...so I shall have to in fact settle on my 3rd favorite...as I've already written about Cara speme. All the same...its ACTUALLY amazing...

2)

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is showed off wonderfully here, and someone is really banging out that harpsichord, which can only be good news. Nice example of the de capo (ABA) aria here as well, with an eerie little return of a melodic idea from Cara speme in the middle section. Angelika Kirchschlager is also completely believable as the pre-pubescent Sesto; artificially it may be the lovely bowl haircut, but it's more likely to be that lovely, innocent clear tone, a bit reminiscent of a boy soprano.

3)

This melody is heartbreaking. And there's something that I can't quite put my finger on about the orchestral accompaniment that's truly magical...it might have something to do with the fact that it's quite sparse and that Handel was THE genius of chordal progressions. Also, watching this is like a master class in how to breath properly - which was definitely what the costume designers had in mind when sketching up the possibilities -or lack of them- for this scene...

You wouldn't believe how long it took to whittle this down to a mere 3 peices...and I'm even saving Piangero, la sorte mia until after I've learned it, in the hope that I'll have a bit more insight. But to sum up, I am NEVER deleting this recording from my sky+ library...unless of course someone would like to buy me the obscenely priced DVD? Any takers?