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Sex and Absolute Power
Handel's 'Giulio Cesare in Egitto',
reviewed by GIUSEPPE PENNISI
Six theatres of three different countries have joined forces to prepare and to implement this new production of Händel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto; the opera houses of Ferrara, Ravenna and Modena in Italy, of Bremen and Halle in Germany and of Poznam in Poland. An interesting cooperation in times when the lyric muse is rather short of cash and finds very few financiers to grant her a credit line. This review is based on the 18 March 2011 performance in the lovely Alighieri Theatre in Ravenna.
Giulio Cesare in Egitto is Händel's fifth full-length opera for the Royal Academy of Music. It is the work that once for all made the Saxon composer the real King of the London musical scene; in the very field of Italian opera, Händel's primacy had been challenged by his former assistant and later associate (before becoming a keen competitor), Giovanni Bononcini...
Copyright © 21 March 2011
Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy
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