Handel: Giulio Cesare.(Sound Recording Review)

[] Mijanovic, Kozena, von Otter, Hellekant; B. Mehta, Ewing, Bertin, Ankaoua; Les Musiciens du Louvre, Minkowski. 2002. Text and translation. DG Archiv B0000314-02 (3)

My introduction to the operas of Handel was the 1967 LP recording of Julius Rudel's New York City Opera version of Julius Caesar, featuring Norman Treigle, Maureen Forrester and Beverly Sills in her breakout role as Cleopatra. Fancy my surprise on learning that Caesar and Ptolemy are not basses but male altos, Cleopatra is not Zerbinetta's Egyptian cousin and the work runs nearly four hours uncut. Ever since the opera's first recording, in 1950 (slashed mercilessly, but with Cesare Siepi and Renata Tebaldi no less, live from the Teatro San Carlo in Naples), productions come and go, instruments and voice-categories get more and more "original," yet I still crave something of the majesty and exuberant virtuosity found in that old Rudel recording.

Here, at last, we get both, and with the added attraction of period instruments stylishly played, from Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre, in a live performance from the Vienna Konzerthaus.

In a multitude of Handel recordings, Minkowski has shown himself more than capable of supporting NASCAR-level singing; he lets the fun stuff be fun and takes delight in singers who can accelerate when pedal hits metal. (Besides, coloratura singing from all voice-categories is a given nowadays--virtuosity is not the big deal it was in 1967, when a bass capable of managing a handful of sixteenth notes was rare indeed.)

It's also no surprise to anyone who has heard Minkowski's performances of Gluck (especially the stunning Iphigenie en Tauride) that he can provide theatrical grandeur when required. Here the overture--played crisply, yet without any twitchy overdotting--sets a regal tone for the whole work. And even though some of the individual pieces seem rushed (Cleopatra's "Venere bella" sounds frantic, and the final duet comes off as graceless and hurried), the seriousness of purpose of these historical characters is never lost.

But the political machinations are only part of the story, and Minkowski is careful not to neglect the opera's sizable erogenous zones. Some of Handel's most sensuous music enhances Cleopatra's carefully planned seduction of Cesare: a tableau displaying herself, dressed as Virtue surrounded by the nine Muses, with Mount Parnassus in the background. This whole scene, with a creamy performance of the ...