Natalie Dessay as Cleopatra, foro Agathe Poupeney

Stage director and costume responsible Laurent Pelly has created a good Julius Cæsar, composed by Georg Friedrich Händel, with libretto by Francesco Haym after Giacomo Francesco Bussani, for Palais Garnier in Paris, in an untraditional setting, which is working well.

The setting by Chantal Thomas is a storage house for sculptures from Egypth and Italy, and Frensh paintings to something, looking like a museum, propobly situated in Egypth, but it could also be at Louvre
. In these surrounding are 16 storage workers moving around on the Egyptian and Italian sculptures, and the French paintings, so they are coming in front to assist and/or being background in the right scenes for the singers  to play their roles, and perform and sing their parts
. This is with the good light by Joél Adam giving the right, and some time renewed, backgrounds for the scenes.

This is working well, we are ffeling like we are in a fantasy world, where the history are like comng out of the old “antique” musum world, and  being played in front of us, where the storage workers are participating deliciously as workers, but too as soldiers, and in many other choreographed occassions to let the play go on.

The cast is headed by some outstanding soloists. Natalie Dessay as Cleopatra (and Lydia) she manage her role outstanding, as we are used to hear her, and she is a center in the play, The character of Cleopatra is drawn with great subtlety. The arias “Se pieta”, “Vadore pupille” and “Piangero la sorte mia” are among the most expressive Händel wrote, and they are taken excellent care of by ms. Dessay. Lawrenze Zazzo is Julius Cæsar he is a good type for the role, and are appearing like he could be Cæsar. His arias makes him appear as a man of action.

Christophe Dumaux is Ptolomeo, the brother of Cleopatra and their fight for the throne, and her love affair with Julis Cæsar is essential in the history. Varduhi Abrahamyan is Cornelia, the poignant character of Cornelia´s grief acts as a counterweight to Cæsar´s extrovert reactions and Cleopatras frivolity: the music attributed to her reveals, behind her desolation, a character blessed with unfalling courage and great serenity, – brilliant performed. And the young Isabel Leonard is Cornelia´s son Sextus,

Isabel Leonard (Sesto), foto Agathe Poupeney

she is absolutely wonderful, she is playing and looking like she is a young handsome guy, and we do believe in her efforts to kill Julius Cæsar who has been killing her father, she is successfully in the job in the very end
. Isabel Leonard is singing wonderful, it is a pleasure to listen to and to look at.

Nathan Berg is masculin and good as Achilles. Dominique Visse good as Nireno and Aimery Lefévre amusing and well singing as Curio.

Lawrence Zazzo (Giulio Cesare) et Christophe Dumaux (Tolomeo), foto Agathe Poupeney

Musically is the production a highlight. Emmanuelle Haïm is conductig it all inclusive her baroque ensemble Orchestre du Concert d´Astrée, with energy and with a lot of feeling when needed. As Julius Cæsar is written for an aristocratic public it is characteristic of one of this kind of court operas of the period, in particular the use of virtuoso singers. All belonging to the opera seria tradition; the work is constructed around recitatives and arias, and in former days the principal masculine roles were given to castrati and the use of choruses are limited. In this case Cæsar is a countertenor, which sound right in this staging, as it allso has been in the last new Julius Cæsar productions i have enjoyed, suh ac for exemple the outstanding renewed Stephan Herheim production lately in Oslo. And this combination directed by emmanuelle Haïm and Concert d´Astrée is making a total successfully musically approach to this beautiful Händel opera.

Unfortunately, as usual, A Häendel opera, and also this one, is often one hour too long, this one 4 hours and 15 minutes. I and a lot of the rest of the audience are missing energy in the end. Still that it is beautiful to listen to. In the end I was getting tired of the storage workers and the whole storage room
. Still the idea was good, i was missing some surprises. Look to the above mentioned Stafan Herheim production at the Norwegian National Opera, Oslo. They have managed it!

CLEOPATRA WITH NATALIE DESSAY ON CD!

Virgin records are introducing a new Cd with Cleopatra arias sung by Natalie Dessay together with Concert d´Astrée conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm, in a good mix with ouverture, interludes and also introducing two rarely-heard arias for Cleopatra replaced by Händel before the first performance in 1724
.

Soprano Natalie Dessay, conductor Emanuelle Haïm and composer George Frideric Handel make an established – and admired – team. Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare is a new role for Dessay at the Paris Opéra in early 2011, and it is in these arias that the Egyptian queen shows her proverbial “infinite variety”.

At the Paris Opéra in early 2011, Natalie Dessay takes on a new starring role: Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare, now the most popular of all the composer’s stage works. The many facets of the Egyptian queen – captured by Shakespeare in the phrase “infinite variety” – are depicted in a sequence of contrasting arias, both lyrical and brilliant, making the character a superb showcase for the French soprano’s talents as a singing actress.

Conducting the impressive cast and the period-instrument orchestra Le Concert d’Astrée at the Opéra – and on this new recording of excerpts from Giulio Cesare – is Emmanuelle Haïm, who first collaborated with Dessay in the late 1990s; both artists were involved in a Paris production of Handel’s Alcina, Haïm as répétiteur (for William Christie) and Dessay in the sparkling role of Morgana. Since then, the two have developed a close working relationship which has produced a number of Virgin Classics recordings, including several works by Handel: cantatas (in a collection called Delirio), the Dixit Dominus and the oratorio Il trionfo del tempo e del desinganno, a recording which left the French magazine Diapason “looking forward to Emmanuelle Haïm’s next exciting Handelian adventure”.

Dessay describes Haïm as the metteur en scène – the stage director – for her voice, while Haïm describes Dessay’s voice as “an exceptional instrument which can take on a thousand forms … Its virtuosity and flexibility make you forget all the difficulties presented by the music.” Haïm goes on to say that: “Handel is the composer for the voice. He demands special qualities that Natalie possesses: an ability to create colours, to embody words in song and to let the imagination speak.”

Reviewing Il trionfo del tempo e del desinganno, Le Monde de la Musique observed that “the virtuosity and rich palette of Le Concert d’Astrée enable Emanuelle Haïm to match the colours and tempo to the emotion expressed”, while the New York Times wrote that: “Ms. Haïm directs the superb Baroque orchestra Le Concert d’Astrée in a fleet, immaculate performance that dances among airy, profound and sensuous moods. The excellent quartet of singers is led by the radiant, bright voice of the soprano Natalie Dessay, whose rapturous Bellezza traverses innocence, defiance and penitence by way of some impressively agile coloratura. ’Tu del ciel ministro eletto’, her spare, haunting final aria with plaintive violin accompaniment, is glorious.” In Britain, the The Sunday Times found that “Natalie Dessay dazzles in Beauty’s arias – she is gorgeous in the sublime penitential concluding number … With Haïm conducting with élan, this is the best available version of this glorious score.”