Two-night epic needs to be cut down to size
The idea of presenting Giulio Cesare, Handel’s longest theatrical work, absolutely complete but spread over two evenings of moderate duration, seemed on paper like a good one, respecting the integrity of Handel’s intentions but also mindful of modern audiences’ limited attention spans.
What one hadn’t bargained for, however, was a performance which in total (including two intervals) lasted for nearly five and a half hours, revealing not a stash of pretty arias normally excised, but yards of fairly dreary recitative and a lot of fiddlefaddling among the secondary characters. To protract matters further, the final 20 minutes of the first half was recapitulated at the beginning of the second half in order to make the latter coherent if seen separately. After it was over, I walked to the bus stop possessed by an urge to scream “cut, cut, cut!”
There’s nothing wrong with James Conway’s staging, but I can’t be more positive about it than that. Cordelia Chisholm’s costuming is rigorously of the early 18th century. Narrative and character are clearly delineated without pretension or gimmickry, and the music is allowed to speak for itself. How lovely, you might think, and what a relief after all those nasty gory rumpy-pumpy modern travesties, but oh dear, the truth is that it is just a teensy bit soporific and crucially shy of the plot’s comic elements.
Ably supported by Jonathan Peter Kenny’s buoyant conducting of the lively orchestra, the singing is overall good and in one respect wonderful. The villains Achilla (Benjamin Bevan) and Tolomeo (Benjamin Williamson) are on the rough side, but Catherine Carby makes a dignified Cornelia, and despite a throat infection, Kitty Whately gives impassioned accounts of Sesto’s magnificent Cara speme and L’angue offeso.
In the title role, counter-tenor Christopher Ainslie as yet lacks the sexy swagger and authority with which mezzo-sopranos such as Janet Baker, Ann Murray and Sarah Connolly so memorably imbued the role, but he gets around the notes stylishly. Without a doubt, however, the show’s star is Soraya Mafi, whose beguiling Cleopatra melts hearts in Giusto ciel and Piangero la sorte mia before dazzling us with Da tempeste il legno infranto. Her voice is diamantine in projection, perfectly in tune, easy with the coloratura and happy to frolic high above the stave. When Mafi is singing, we get lift off.