Spring 2025 brings to New York two contrasting variations of Giulio Cesare, Handel’s hottest work: The English Live performance brings it to Carnegie Corridor (in addition to a number of different venues) in live performance, whereas R. B. Schlather levels it in his persevering with Handel cycle at Hudson Corridor. As a preview Chris’s Cache affords a uncommon pirate recording that includes Cecilia Bartoli, Andreas Scholl, and Les Arts Florissants.
After Bartoli sang her first Cleopatras in Zurich in 2005, she waited a number of years to attempt it out once more. In February 2011, two performances have been scheduled for the Salle Pleyel in Paris marking the primary time the mezzo would collaborate with William Christie’s group in a whole opera. (They’d carried out a minimum of one live performance collectively earlier than then.) She and Christie had labored collectively in Zurich on Seneke in 2007 however the orchestra was that opera firm’s resident period-instrument ensemble La Scintilla. I heard Bartoli as Semele on the Pleyel later in 2011 with La Scintilla however the oratorio was performed by Diego Fasolis.
Rumors on the time circulated that the Giulio Cesare live shows would turn out to be the idea for a industrial recording, however that didn’t come to go. Some advised that Les Arts Florissants wasn’t as much as the job which appears odd given the group’s sterling monitor report. Maybe Bartoli didn’t see eye-to-eye with Christie as a number of years later she appeared in a staging on the Salzburg Whitsun Competition, once more with Scholl as her Cesare; it could be videotaped and launched on DVD.
Demand was so excessive for tickets in Paris {that a} third efficiency was scheduled and an in-house recording of that GC is what we hear in the present day. The main distinction is that Philippe Jaroussky who had sung Sesto within the earlier Paris pair was unavailable so his place was taken by the fantastic Anna Bonitatibus who had appeared with Bartoli in Zurich. Jaroussky’s Sesto, nonetheless, could be heard and seen within the Salzburg video the place his besieged mom was performed by Sara Mingardo. In Paris, Nathalie Stutzmann was Cornelia.
Christie performed Giulio Cesare on the Glyndebourne Competition within the famed David McVicar manufacturing that subsequently got here to the Met. Thus far, nonetheless, Christie has not tackled Cesare once more along with his personal group.
2025’s 12 months of Giulio Cesare continues on the Salzburg Competition this summer time when Dmitri Tcherniakov mounts the work with Christophe Dumaux (lastly transferring up from Tolomeo and who can be showing within the title function with The English Live performance) and Olga Kulchynska, the Met’s present Susanna, as Cleopatra. By the way in which, Salzburg’s Achilla will likely be Andrey Zhilikhovsky who’s scheduled to be the Met’s Figaro in its upcoming HD of Il Barbiere di Siviglia.
Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto
Cleopatra: Cecilia Bartoli
Cornelia: Nathalie Stutzmann
Sesto: Anna Bonitatibus
Giulio Cesare: Andreas Scholl
Tolomeo: Christophe Dumaux
Nireno: Rachid Ben Abdeslam
Achilla: Umberto Chiummo
Curio: Andreas Wolf
Les Arts Florissants
Conductor: Willia Christie
Salle Pleyel
14 February 2010
In-house recording
Giulio Cesare could be downloaded by clicking on the icon of a cloud with an arrow pointing downward on the audio participant above and the ensuing mp3 file will seem in your obtain listing.
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