“Giulio Cesare”, composed as a direct ’neighbour’ to the two other masterpieces “Tamerlano” (1724) and “Rodelinda” (1725) and premièred on 20th February 1724 in the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, is not only one of the most important of all Handel’s operas - it also helped its creator to win his first victory in a war so rich in both triumphs and defeats - the London opera war. In 1719 a group of noblemen under the patronage of the King had founded a joint-stock company with the name “Royal Academy of Music”, appointing Handel as its musical director. The “Royal Academy”, not to be confused with the present-day college of the same name, was no more nor less than an operatic venture intended not only to entertain wealthy noblemen, but also to make a profit. Handel, wo had engaged firstclass Italian singers in Düsseldorf und Dresden for the newly-founded company, did not remain sole musical director for long. True to the old trader’s motto that competition is good for business, the shareholders soon saw fit to appoint a second and in due course even a third composer in the hope of increasing the appeal of the new opera house and thus the box-office takings. One of these two composers was the same Giovanni Bononcini whose opers “Il trionfo di Camilla” was the most frequently performed work of a whole epoch. “Camilla” was the first international repertoire opera, so to speak, and was given over a hundred times in London alone well into the time of the feuds. A musical rivalry sprang up between Handel and Bononcini, which the partisans of the two composers were quick to expand into a political controversy. Since Handel enjoyed the open protection of the King, the anti-royalist took Bononcini’s side. Both composers wrote one opera aner another in rapid succession, as if they were trying to occupy further ground with them. Handel finally managed to vanquish his rival from the field for once and for all with “Giulio Cesare”. Bonocini left the Royal Academy, and Handel remained the sole victor until the famous “War of the Primadonnas” offered old enmities a new battlefield two years later.
The uninformed listener wouldn’t know that “Giulio Cesare” was the decisive spear-thrust in an opera war - on the contrary, Handel wrote here perhaps the most erotic opera music in his entire oeuvre, music full of deadly serious love, full of wooing and seduction, full of tempestuous passion. In this opera Julius Caesar appears not as the robust middle-aged man of history, but as a soldier and lover full of youthful fire. And Handel’s musical characterization of Cleopatra takes the wind out of the sails of all insistent claims that the dramatic technique of opera seria, with its da capo arias rich in coloratura at the end of a scene, made psychologically convincing character portrayal impossible. For in the course of Handel’s opera, Cleopatra changes from a frivolous young beauty to a woman capable of real love. Among the secondary roles, Cornelia, Pompey’s widow, is particularly fine: her tragic earnest forms a striking contrast to the highly virtuoso parts of thetwo main characters.
Although the emphasis was on brilliant display singing in the operas Handel wrote at this time - he could command the services of the world stars of the period, Senesino and Cuzzoni -, “Giulio Cesare” is not lacking in dramatically effective plot. The London audiences, unable to understand Italian, would not have accepted a serious of incomprehensible secco recitatives and pretty arias, “Giulio Cesare” offered spectacle for the eye as well as the ear: processions and battle turmoil, attempted and successful murders on open stage, Arcardian magicianry and victory celebrations. The fact that Handel’s opera was triumphant over the facile charms of Bononcini must certainly have had something to do with these external features - above all, though, with Handel’s ability to bring theatre figures grippingly to life with his music.
This recording was made in the context of a scenic performance of the work, and obviously the question presented itself whether the entire opera should be recorded and released. We finally decided in favour of the selection of music offered here. Unlike Handel’s oratorios, which can be adapted to very different types of performance, his operas are conceived to such an extent around the visual element that a complete recording would be encumbered by far too much primarily dramatic ballast, such as the secco recitatives. This would of course be no problem in the case of a well-known work, where the listener adds his own knowledge to what he hears on disc. But here we felt it was more important to present the genre itself and the style of interpretation we have evolved.
In Giulio Cesare Handel shows the clash of two fundamentally different cultures: the Egyptian and the Roman. With considerable irony and wit, he both uses and undermines the old form of the opera seria in the process. Not since the Italian operas of Monteverdi and his contemporaries - i.e. before the crystallisation of the opera seria with its distinct characters and prescribed conflicts - had there been a hero who was at the same time a figure of ridicule.
The Romans, the embodiment of order, permanent victors, upholders of morality and old Roman virtue, are glorified and ridiculed at one and the same time Julius Caesar introduces himself with the famous line from his own “De Bello Gallico”: “I came, I saw, I conquered” - yet Cleopatra is able to twist him round her little finger with the art of seduction. At the climax of the war he falls (or jumps?) into the water and then crawls back on to land dirty, exhausted and lonely - “Where are my legions?”. Is that the way for the ruler of half the world to behave? He doesn’t win through his own strength, but thanks to treacherous accomplices. Cornelia, Pompey’s widow, emphasizes time after time that she is of Roman birth, that she embodies the ancient Roman virtues and is thus to be treated with respect and awe. But at the same time she radiates such sex appeal that just about every man she meets - a Roman general, Tolomeo (the “wicked” antagonist of Caesar and Cleopatra), Achilla (his close friend) - falls for her without delay.
Sextus (Sesto), Cornelia’s adolescent son, sees himself as a true Roman hero, but when he appears his mother always has him in tow, and he eagerly repeats everything she says. To one of the many proposals of marriage his mother receives he answers: “No, we are not marrying.” The Roman soldiers react as bawdy soldiers always do, every time a woman appears in the camp.
The Egyptians are the personification of the insincerity and treachery, disorden filth and sultry desire associated with hot southern clirnes; yet they show imagination and a Wealth of feeling. Cleopatra, youthful ruler over Egypt together with her brother Tolomeo, tries, disguised as the girl Lydia, to ensnare Caesar, the conqueror of her country, so that she can eliminate her hated brother and rule alone - without Caesar and the Romans, of course. In the end, though, her plans miscarry - she falls headlong in love with Caesar and, faced with the jubilant crowds of Romans and Egyptians, enters “eternal union” with him. Everyone on the stage, Romans and Egyptians alike, and in the audience knows that Caesar has a faithful wife back home in Rome and that his vows of loyalty to Cleopatra are lies, so the closing festivities are nothing if not ironic.
The whole opera, with its ironically treated racism, can also be seen as a kind of travel brochure for one of the big English oriental trading companies: Take the boat to Egypt! It’s a bit dirty there, and not as cool as home, but you’ll experience the adventure of the Eastl The people are full of fantasy, unpredictable... the climate sultry... all kinds of excitement await you! The levelheaded northerner’s envy of the Mediterrannean or even tropical way of life comes to the fore.
Our recording begins with the overture [1]. This piece, which is intended to prepare the audience for the turbulence and colourfulness of the opera, is dominated by hectic emotions. The string orchestra receives reinforcement and additional colouring from oboes and bassoons. A relatively rich continuo group (two harpsichords, lute and organ) harmonizes and rhythmizes the basses. The overture normally consists of three sections: a festive or fiery opening section, a fugued allegro and a conclusion similar in character to the beginning. Here Handel unexpectedly brings a choral minuet [2] instead of the third section. The victorious Caesar is greeted by the Egyptians, horns introduce a new colour (perhaps with Oriental effect) into the orchestral sound, the continuo is dominated by the organ. In abrupt contrast, this is.followed by Caesar’s first aria [3] - here, as required in the original, sung by a high male voice. The aria is a virtuoso piece of heroic self-congratulation: he, the triumphant victor, deserves to be received with palm branches and the cheers ofthe people. In musical terms this aria is still part of the overture, which thus enjoys an unconventionally fiery conclusion.
Cornelia’s sad, desolate aria [4] - her husband Pompey has been murdered by the Egyptians - is accompanied by the string orchestra, organ and lute as well as a solo flute. - By his father’s grave, Sesto swears to revenge his murder: The two parts of his aria offer an extreme contrast with one another: in the fast revenge section he “stokes up” his own courage, as it were, while the slow section is composed in the manner of the “ombra” arias traditional at the time - accompanied by ghostly recorders he recalls the memory of his dead father [6]. - Sesto’s aria that follows [7] from a later scene, is an exeptionally tender piece, accompanied only by a harpsichord in soft register and a cello. Sweet hope begins to bud, and the listener could well think it is the song of a young lover - but it is the hope of finding the hated murderer and killing him. There is bitter irony of great dramatic effect in this reversal of feelings and their traditional musical expression. - Caesar and his adversary Tolomeo face one another: each tries to set a trap for the other, while speaking to him in tones of honeyed friendliness. Caesar’s great aria [8] with the solo horn accompaniment depicts this situation: a huntsman creeps up on tiptoe to outwit the game. This nocturnal piece is a rare example of a large natural horn solo in the piano, hence the quiet continuo: organ and harpsichord with peau de buffle. - For Cornelia an end to her plight seems to be in sight; her sigh aria [9] with strings, organ, lute and recorder says the exact opposite of its musical content: there will be an end to her sighing and lament. It is a rhetorical game in which the pauses play a major role as a particularly effective “figure”.
Cleopatra’s long F sharp minor aria [10] can be considered the musical nucleus of the opera: it is a grandiose lament for the fate of her lover. Here, all doubts as to this clever woman’s honesty are dispelled; here she is nothing but a woman in love. The Baroque harp is the special continuo instrument for Cleopatra, combined here with the organ. The war music [11], in which as so often in the Baroque period the sound of trumpets is imitated by string and oboes, signals the Roman victory - Cleopatra reacts to the news of Caesar’s rescue and the destruction of Tolomeo and Achilla with a song of triumph [12]: this piece, like the great aria of mourning, shows that the part of the Egyptian queen is written for a primadonna assoluta. It contains the greatest expressive range, from legatissimo through to coloratura, and the scale encompassed stretches from a deep mezzo to high soprano. - The  arade that leads to the closing tableau is ushered in by two instrumental pieces [13]:  a complex one with two subtly set groups of horns (right and left), and a
simple, brilliant march with timpani and trumpets. The contrast of “Egyptian” and “Roman” is obviously intended to be repeated once more here. - The final chorus [14] with the duet between Caesar and Cleopatra in the central section is a bourée. The entire opera is thus framed by two choral dances: a strictly formal framework for the most luxuriant subject-matter. Within the bourée itself we find a similar structure: the two outer sections form a fairly strict, festive frame for a very soft central part whose sensuality seems genuine, but whose text - vows of eternal loyalty - seems ironic in the extreme.