George Frideric Handel - Giulio Cesare in Egitto
Salzburger Festspiele, 2025
Emmanuelle Haïm, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Christophe Dumaux, Olga Kulchynska, Lucile Richardot, Federico Fiorio, Yuriy Mynenko, Andrei Zhilikhovsky, Jake Ingbar, Robert Raso
3Sat Livestream - August 2025
Tcherniakov, as a Russian born director, has addressed such issues before and met them head-on what would have otherwise been a problematic production of Prokofiev's War and Peace being staged in Munich while Russia was attacking Ukraine not too far away. Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto of course needs no such translation, the composer in his third opera making the complicated situation of Caesar and Pompey's war in Egypt involving Ptolemy and his sister Cleopatra perfectly clear. All the hidden sentiments, rivalry, lusts and cruelties are exposed or at least hinted at, but there is a danger that dated but nonetheless heartfelt expressions such as Ptolemy describing Caesar in terms like "This perfidious, unworthy miscreant" might lack the necessary weight behind them that the situation demands.
The war between Caesar and Pompey might be over, but the 'fall-out' from their power struggle remains, and Tcherniakov chooses to present that in terms of the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. If there is an irony in that situation, it's a grim one, rendering the participants pathetic figures fighting over a wasteland. Whether you think that's appropriate for what happened in 45 BC or even whether it's relevant to the time of the original composition in 1724, it certainly hammers home the potential endgame of what is being played out on the global scene today. All the main players have been evacuated to a network of underground bunkers (the ordinary citizens presumably left to fend for themselves above ground), their opening praise to Caesar's accomplishments striking that first note of irony. As Cesare, Cleopatra and Tolomeo all strike airs singing airs, the others seem to have little time for their self-delusions; the reality of Pompey's death, Caesar's ambition and Cleopatra's self importance having little truck with the others, not least the grieving Cornelia, the vengeful Sesto and the self-serving Achilla.
The set design and directorial characterisation gets to the heart of the contradiction of Giulio Cesare in Egitto. There is a bloody and violent war going on, there is a struggle for power, a battle of egos, a struggle for dominance, all filled with anger, betrayal and plotting. There is also a measure of some kind of greatness and beauty here with sentiments praising fidelity, beauty, love and genuine human feeling. Handel reconciles those opposing but complementary forces in his music. It's simply a beautifully conceived and composed opera, but of course that is hard to view in the same way several hundred years later, several millennia after the original figures appeared on the world stage, particularly when we are likely to have a different view of how historical events played out in opera compare to real life as we know it. Still, the opera stage is no place for 'real life'; the challenge rather is to make it better and truer to life, if you think such a thing is possible. Handel proves that it is, and the director has to use that key resource to his advantage.
Aside from his great work with Russian opera (outstanding with Rimsky-Korsakov, Shostakovitch, Borodin, Prokofiev), I'm not convinced that Tcherniakov has a similar feeling for western operas, taking more of a combative approach, breaking them down, stripping them of mannerisms and adornments, viewing them in terms of middle-class psychodramas, turning them around and turning them on the bourgeois western audience who frequently award the production team with boos for their trouble. A simplistic analysis of Tcherniakov's intent maybe, but although it can sometimes detract from the deeper purpose of the works, his approach still produces interesting results. It certainly worked when Tcherniakov last worked side-by-side with musical director Emmanuelle Haïm on the Gluck Iphigénie en Aulide/Iphigénie en Tauride diptych for Aix-en-Provence last year. Like that production, I don't think Tcherniakov's approach subverts Handel's vision or detracts from the beauty of the work, but I don't think he really adds anything to it either or fully translates it for a modern audience.
Baroque often needs a little more dramatic inventiveness and Tcherniakov's bunker setting really just closes it in. An example of his approach is in Act II, Scene III which the original libretti describes as "Cornelia, con piccola zappa nelle mani, che vien coltivando i fiori" ("Cornelia, in the garden of the seraglio with a small hoe in her hand cultivating flowers"). Here Cornelia sings 'Deh. Piangete, oh mesti lumi, già per voi non v'è più speme' on a mattress where her son Sesto has been trussed up and dumped at her feet as if dead. Unquestionably Tchernaikov's version is a more dramatic alignment with the sentiments expressed by Cornelia, but it's the aria itself and the person singing it that expresses the horror of the situation and that's done here by Lucile Richardot (a baroque specialist, she may not be an ideal Cornelia but she has an interesting expressive dramatic harshness here that suits the character). Tolomeo’s attempted rape in the subsequent aria 'Sì, spietata, il tuo rigore…' does indeed also reflect the intent of the aria, and gives the resultant fury of Sesto's justification for revenge, so Tcherniakov knows exactly how to draw the most out of the scene (and perhaps taking it even further than necessary into suggestions of an incestuous nature). That's the general approach taken elsewhere here.
For Scene VII in this Act likewise, Tcherniakov translates Cleopatra’s 'Venere bella' from a "pleasure garden" to Caesar’s bed (or mattress here), which again is realistic and much less "flowery". Each scene is balanced to strike a good balance between realistic behaviour and the operatic flourishes, the singers playing with great intensity. Like his work on War and Peace, Tcherniakov manages to do this by tapping into the fragile state of madness that reflects the current political climate and reflect it on the stage without foolishly trying to represent it with explicit references. Despite a few shock interruptions however and the onstage attempted assassination of Caesar, the grey oppressiveness of the bunker situation is unable to compensate for the otherwise inertness of dramatic action. Since the opera is largely characterised by declamatory arias, ariosos and recitative however perhaps I'm expecting too much.
But again, I stress, what can't be denied as hugely effective is the beautiful musical and lyrical content that Handel has arranged. Above everything it's superbly played under musical direction of Emmanuelle Haïm and in the wonderfully cast and well directed acting of the singers, all of which makes it a gripping and engaging Giulio Cesare. It's impossible to single out any of the cast as more deserving of praise, but evidently the key roles are all impressive. There's the vulnerability and charm of Olga Kulchynska's Cleopatra seeking love and alliance; the lustful imperiousness nobility of Christophe Dumaux's Cesare; the inner strength and dignity with which Lucile Richardot's Cornelia endures her torment and grief; the wonderfully sneery arrogance and casual cruelty of Yuriy Mynenko's floppy haired public schoolboy Tolomeo. Even the secondary roles of Andrei Zhilikhovsky's Achilla and Federico Fiorio's particularly excitable and impetuous Sesto are exceptionally good with individual interpretations that contrast and complement each other. The roles of Nireno and Curio are necessarily reduced here, but also sung well by Jake Ingbar and Robert Raso. You would of course expect this high standard at Salzburg, and unquestionably this is opera performance and interpretation of the highest order.
