So is the title role, though the speed at which Kenny required Christopher Ainslie to deliver his opening aria was so fast it really did not show his voice to advantage. Cleopatra, performed with some charm and not a lot of taste by Soraya Mafi, is a gift role however done. The casting was as dubious as the set and costume designs by Cordelia Chisholm, Conway’s direction, and Jonathan Peter Kenny’s energetic unsubtle conducting. However, ETO here did not achieve a memorable outing for this witty and moving masterpiece. Having seen the opera staged in a contemporary American military context by Peter Sellars near Paris (which took five hours and started challengingly at 9pm), as well as other fine productions in Munich especially, but also Copenhagen, Oslo (by Stefan Herheim), Glyndebourne, Glasgow, our own Royal Opera at the Shaftesbury Theatre, and the Coliseum (John Copley with Janet Baker in the title role), I am aware there is a lot of genius material and it is not always all used. Handel’s Italian operas work well in English, but this was falling between two stools. Why were the Romans in late 18th-century uniforms (the age of Nelson and Napoleon’s encounter in Egypt)? Worse, Conway provided titles in English that translated bits of the recitative but not the arias, only briefly describing what a singer was going on about in an aria. Dragging it all out added (even when done between 4pm and 10.15pm at Saffron Hall) to disappointment with the scenic blandness and poor direction of the performers. Conway for ten of the performance locations split the work half one night, half the next – charging for separate tickets with a discount not a justifiable experiment. Saffron Hall was one of the few tour locations where the opera was given all on one day. Handel profited during his time in Rome from the patronage of various music-loving cardinals, but was also a devout Protestant and neither inclined to Catholicism nor to the wrong line of Stuarts. Conway’s comments about Great Britain’s Protestant monarchy seem irrelevant. Conway proposes a vague parallel between Cleopatra’s lot and the sexy French of Louis XV’s court – though the Protestant UK monarchy demonstrated exactly the same morals in the 1720s, and Louis XV was only 14 years old when Handel’s opera had its London premiere. The note touches on history around the opera’s time of composition without much evident understanding. Severity is a decent teacher, he writes, adding that he “cannot say what it means”. His first attempt at staging the work was on an outdoor stage with little by way of set or costumes. In a voluminous director’s note in the programme he attempts a justification for his approach – including suggesting that productions of Giulio Cesare in Egitto he has seen seem to contain much comedy for an artform known as opera seria. James Conway, who did the production and is the long-standing boss of English Touring Opera, has done a lot of Handel and definitely believes that less is more – less scenery, less direction, less attention to detail or meaning. So of course I took refuge in celebrating the wonderful music. Critics criticise but need not rain on the parade too destructively: those who have paid for their tickets have a right to get as much enjoyment as they can. At Saffron Hall during the vast refreshment interval in the middle of the opera, I was sitting at a table with strangers who wanted to know how I was enjoying myself. But it is the brilliance and memorable quality of so many of its arias that make it so popular and powerful. Its story is very similar to Bernard Shaw’s play Caesar and Cleopatra. Julius Caesar in Egypt is probably Handel’s most popular and approachable opera. If you are using the Audio Described Service a Touch Tour will be available at 6pm to ticket holders using the Audio Described Service for that performance only.Christopher Ainslie and Soraya Mafi in ETO's Giulio Cesare The performance of Così fan tutte on the 06 Mar will be Audio Described
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The % discount will be deducted automatically off full price adult tickets at the checkout) (To get the offer you need to buy all tickets in one transaction to get the multi-buy discount and cannot be used in conjunction with any other offers or discounts. Multibuy : Book for 2 performances in ETO Spring Season get 20% off.īook for 3 performances in ETO Spring Season get 25% off.
Tickets will be held at the box office for collection and proof of age ID will be required for collecting tickets.Ĭoncessions: £2 off (seniors, unwaged, disabled) Under 35: Limited number of £5 tickets available over the phone across price bands C & D.
£37- £10 (plus £1.15 per ticket online, £1.35 per ticket over the phone).
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