| OPERA REVIEW Handel's Unsurpassed, Shakespearean Caesar June 19, 2002
Photos by Larry Merkle |
By Robert Commanday
The San Francisco Opera's Handel's Giulio Cesare Wednesday was its first fully memorable new production in many years, first and best of all, for its music. Handel was not upstaged by the bright, shiny sets and opulent costumes borrowed from the Metropolitan Opera, and not by the staging by John Copley, which was intelligent. The score triumphed with the music unsurpassed by anything else composed by Handel in the operatic line or for that matter, by any of his contemporaries. It more than beautifully fulfills its expressive purposes while establishing and developing the characters in ways justly described as Shakespearean. The arias, in their succession, eight for Cleopatra, eight for Caesar, several for the tragic Cornelia and so on, develop portraits of the personages as they change and reveal their inner selves.
At certain moments, the performances created the rare and thrilling sensation for involved listeners that the singing and the music's expressive essence were also being produced by them. This is the peak operatic experience, when a voice and the music it is bearing find sympathetic resonance in the auditor who has an illusion of being the composer's instrument and voice. The first to transport in this way was Ruth Ann Swenson as Cleopatra, singing “Have pity on me, Heaven” (“Se pietà”), her tone aria covered and velvety. Swenson's soprano has become more mature, varied and richer, as was developed beautifully in the succeeding and famous aria, “Piangero” (“I shall weep for my fate”).
Immediately following, David Daniels, the illustrious countertenor with strength of tone, fluid technique and expressive range to encompass Handel's towering Caesar, achieved comparable contact in “You breezes waft over me.” Directly followed an aria (“Quel torrente”) in which his brilliant virtuosity shone. Essential in this and all else was the plasticity and energizing conducting of Nicholas McGegan that shaped the phrases, found and opened the “spaces between” in which the lyric impulse could expand and breathe.
McGegan's leadership insured a stylish performance, taking full advantage of today's situation for Baroque music. This includes of course, the state of the countertenor art and availability of three remarkables, Daniels, Bejun Mehta, as Tolomeo (Ptolemy), and Daniel Taylor (Nireno) so that the roles would be sung in the composed ranges as is musically essential, and sung splendidly. Also there is awareness of early music style today by modern orchestral players, reflected in the Opera orchestra's keen performance, responsive to McGegan's ever-charged and almost propulsive lead. This was a dynamic realization of the drama and the music. Hardly a succession of fixed musical images, the arias da capo that were the formal convention of Handel's time (ABA), built a continuing sense of changing characterization. Cleopatra's arias reveal her as confident, ambitious, then as a tease, a enchantress (the seductive “Your flashing eyes like Cupid's darts” (“V'adoro pupille”) and “Fair Venus” (“Venere bella”), as vulnerable, herself ensnared by love, then despairing. Swenson sang these portraits beautifully although not quite sensuously enough for the femme fatale phase of Handel's Cleopatra. Swenson's soprano was ever changing in color, the top register now bright-edged, now soft and pure, the mid-range warm and rich (risking some pitch shading that did occur) then clear and focused, the coloratura stunning. She has gained variety with maturity. That made this an exemplary interpretation after Cleopatra herself falls in love and faces despair. Caesar is even more variable, though less deep in dimension, and Daniels does it all, powerfully. Though the characterization is not subtle, the swaggering conqueror shows himself a compassionate figure, and then a romantic. Daniels created a lovely, flowing melodic flourish in “No meadow boasts so fair a flower” as Caesar falls for Cleopatra in her disguise as “Lydia,” a lady-in-waiting. He is a determined foe (“A cunning hunter uses stealth”) [“Va tacito . . . ,”], his florid singing matched by a brilliant horn obbligato played by William Klinghoffer. He is a passionate lover (“Se in fiorito . . . ,” “The bird . . . in the flowery meadow,” to an exquisite, pictorial violin obbligato played by Kay Stern), and finally a hero rebounding from defeat.
The classic British mezzo soprano Felicity Palmer sang the role of the tragic, all-suffering Cornelia, creating the opera's single noble, even heroic character. She gave a moving performance, conveying sorrow and despair in most refined singing. The duet Palmer sang with the Rumanian mezzo soprano Ruxandra Donose, as Cornelia's son Sesto, “I was born to weep,” was the moving finale to the first act, and a deep stroke. Sesto alternately grieves, despairs and rages over his father's death and the humiliations his mother and he suffer and Donose sang these arias splendidly. (Sesto eventually kills the tyrant Tolomeo, but offstage. In this production, the scene is cut along with six arias, portions of some recitatives and the middle sections of some arias). The countertenor Begun Mehta was Tolomeo, Cleopatra's (younger) brother who eventually seizes power, imprisoning his sister until her rescue by a resurgent Caesar. The director, John Copley, had Mehta play Tolomeo as an effeminate nasty, bisexual, with two boy slaves (dancers) as fauning attendants, and ruthless. While involving more physical action than was characteristic of stagings in Handel's time, the business may have been amusing to some. Mehta sang persuasively, his voice cleanly focused, his technique giving power to the vigor and energy in the music describing Tolomeo's villainous resolve. Cleopatra's confidant, Nirenus, as played and very well sung by the countertenor David Taylor, was a pleasing and insinuating character. Only one singer was miscast. The decidedly bass role of Tolomeo's conniving and treacherous general Achilla was taken by a low baritone, Denis Sedov. For all its dark and rich qualities, his voice has problems in consistency, in passagio, was uneven in transitions. John Ames, a good bass-baritone, served well as Caesar's aide, Curio. Copley's included the mime role of Ptolemy's chief minister, an actor John Minagro. He was useful as foil for Tolomeo and symbol implying an authority that might have seemed ambiguous without the sterner presence at his side. Copley's staging was economical and, save for the slave boy stuff, discreet and purposeful.
John Pascoe's sets, originally designed for the English National Opera, gave an impressive depiction of “the glory that was Rome” (in Alexandria). There were striking pieces such as a metallic gold silhouette of the Mediterranean surrounded by spears and various artifacts, elements of Roman armor, imperial Roman standards borne by soldiers in the opera's opening and closing scenes and obelisks planted around most scenes as a thematic device. The “Paradise” enclosure, a fantasy scene Cleopatra (as Lydia) staged to cast her amorous spell on Caesar was musically ravishing and a sumptuous display, as was also Cleopatra's apartment. Costumes by Michael Stennett costumes were luxurious, colorful, even the Roman officers' vestments and great capes. The women's great puffed-out skirts seemed more referential to the 16th than the 18th century but no matter. Each set of dresses was fancier than the one before. It was a good sight, but a wonderful listen.
(Robert P. Commanday, the senior editor of San Francisco Classical Voice, was the music critic of The San Francisco Chronicle, 1965-93, and before that a conductor and lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley.) ©2002 Robert Commanday, all rights reserved |
