Opéra de Monte-Carlo has mauled Handel’s masterpiece

I bought my first Cecilia Bartoli CD in 1988. It was Rossini’s La scala di seta – The silken ladder. The Italian coloratura mezzo-soprano, coming star of stage, disc and cassette, went on, deservedly, to become a star of the 90’s. Her voice was highly coloured. Even at the outset, some critics wrote her off as idiosyncratic, but she attacked the repertoire with vim and vigour. If you liked vocal fireworks, you loved Bartoli.

Stroll on three decades and Bartoli pops up unexpectedly as the Director of Opéra Monte-Carlo. In August 2023, on her appointment, she offered this rather unusual quote to Associated Press: “After 35 years of singing, I think it’s a great challenge,” she began. So far so good.

Then: “When you are the performer, you are concentrating on your music. You don’t know exactly the other artists, what are their needs. Everybody’s different, has a different body, has a different way of reacting to stress. Each artist has a different way to see that.” So, an expert in orchestrating the complexity of an opera house she does not even claim to be. 

This is psychobabble and offers no clue as to her qualifications to direct a small, but important opera house. She then incanted some drivel about singing pop music in the shower and wanting to sing the role of Don Giovanni (what?) at which point, the interviewers seem to have lost heart, made their excuses, and left.  

Would this Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Handel’s seventeenth opera which opened to acclaim in London’s Haymarket in 1724, vindicate Bartoli’s appointment? With one bound, would the singer transition triumphantly to opera house direction? I really hoped so. But no. 

Davide Livermore’s new production for Monte-Carlo is a chaotic mess, based on Agatha Christie’s Poirot page-turner, Death on the Nile, set on the good steamer Tolomeo – Ho! Ho! – a jokey reference to King Tolomeo, Cleopatra’s sibling and Caesar’s rival.

Worse. True to the ancient Egyptian Pharoahic system of nepotistic government was Bartoli’s bizarre decision to cast herself as Cleopatra. In 1987 she debuted on the operatic stage at the Arena de Verona. Italian tenor, Carlo Vistoli, who sang Giulio Cesare in Monaco, was born in 1987. 

Far be it from me, already deep into that neurone challenging era of post-bus pass senility, yet still qualified to run for President of the US, to turn unfashionably ageist. But this pairing was simply incredible. In the opening encounter between Caesar and Cleo, it did seem as if the mighty ruler of all the known world had unexpectedly fallen for his granny. 

The Monaco audience, mainly season ticket holders, is still giving Bartoli the benefit of the doubt, but for how much longer? Her voice is far from what it was in her heyday. Weak at the top of the register and slipping into the occasional strange growl on the low notes. She had little dynamism and frequently stood front of stage singing to the audience as if at a solo concert. 

Why do some opera singers try to push the envelope beyond reason? Placido Domingo is another example of not knowing when to throw in the towel. At least the former tenor, now a baritone at 80, heading towards basso profundo at 90, now sticks to concert appearances. Opera needs its own version of career Dignitas. 

Boarding a BA flight back from Madrid on Wednesday, I bumped into the Academy of St Martin’s in the Fields. All of them. As one does. On the jetway, boarding the plane. So, ample time for a deep conversation. The subject of “really, let’s face it you’re past it”, singers came up. There was an unattributable acidic comment from one musician about Romanian soprano, Angela Gheorghiu’s recent Covent Garden appearance as Mimi in Puccini’s la Bohème.

Gheorghiu is now 58. Getting on a bit for a seamstress occupying student digs in Paris attics. Apparently, the orchestra had to tune down a semitone to accommodate her and when the once stage-commanding soprano occasionally found a note she could sustain she hung onto it like a lifebelt in a storm-tossed sea. Nonetheless, her audience loved it. Look out for Rodolfo’s rewritten Act I aria, “Your tiny pension’s frozen”.

Back in Egypt, Handel’s Roman-Egyptian war is meant to unfold across a broad geographical landscape. The Roman HQ, Tolomeo and Cleopatra’s palace, and the banks of the Nile all require their distinct settings if the action is to follow a comprehensible narrative. 

Instead, we were confined on the decks of a steamer with dodgy, flickering lighting, ploughing up the Nile, Tolomeo wreaking revenge on Caesar from Cabin 207 in between ordering room service. A repetitive, spooling backdrop of the riverbank passing by – “Look, there goes Abu Simbal again” – was worthy of a clunky high school production.

Caesar can be interpreted in many ways, but has seldom been thought of as a white-suited, slicked-haired crooner singing into a bulbous chrome microphone, introducing one aria …… “One, two, three”. Infantile kitsch. Cleopatra crooning back was just ridiculous. 

Characters blustered willy-nilly across stage entering left and exiting right, or vice versa, to no apparent purpose. That’s when they weren’t lounging around, lapping up dry martinis listening to crooner Caesar. Precise direction matters or an opera loses focus completely. 

The filmed backdrop of fighter planes strafing the good steamer Tolomeo towards the end of the first half was certainly unexpected. Back in the day, Caesar commanded legions, so having an air force as well was a novelty. Or was it Tolomeo’s air force? We were never told. 

Maybe they had been deployed from our great British aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, targeting Caesar, Cleo, Tolly et al as less elusive prey than Houthi rebels. Unlikely. These were single-winged Spitfire fighters. Far too modern for HMS QE. Our flagship is proudly kitted out with Tiger Moths, Sopwith Camels and a bent propellor. Like this opera. Never makes it very far from port. 

How should Handel’s Giulio Cesare be updated to make it relevant to a 21st-century audience? It can be done. Glyndebourne pulled it off magnificently in their David MacVicar production in 2005. Slick, focused choreography, courtesy of Welsh choreographer Andrew George, instead of random charging about, makes that production bounce. 

There is no descent into slapstick. For example, Cleopatra’s Non disperare Aria in Act 1 is a comic masterpiece. George matches every Handel musical flourish to Cleopatra’s every gesture as she mocks her hapless sibling, Tolomeo. Funny, but illustrative of the balance of power moving from the doomed king to his sister.

At Glyndebourne, the audience was treated to an unsurpassable, performance from Daniele de Nise as the Egyptian queen. In 2005, de Nise could be everything – fluent, athletic, gamine – that Bartoli could not be in 2024. 

English mezzo soprano, Sarah Connolly, took on the role of Caesar in that production. It has no peer. The Met brought the MacVicar show to New York in 2013, when Natalie Dessay almost outdid de Nise in her flirty interpretation of Cleopatra. 

It is wonderful that the classic is being revived at Glyndebourne in the coming season. Priority booking friends have secured seats. So there! I am looking forward to seeing my friend, San Francisco counter tenor, Aryeh Nusbaum Cohen, take on the role of Giulio Cesare, a change from Connolly’s trouser role. He will not be crooning.

Giulio Cesare in Egitto is not a farce. Although not strictly based on history, Nicola Francesco Haym’s libretto is a serious tale which deserves – occasional comedic relief diversions aside – to be treated with respect. 

Here is a complete synopsis for readers unfamiliar with the complexities of the plot, keen to dunk themselves in the troubled waters of the Nile. 

Haym came to London from Italy in 1701. Handel called on him for libretti for only nine of his forty-nine operas, starting with Radamisto in 1720. The cellist, who had an eye for business – Haym was an agent for a soprano of the day, Joanna Maria Lindehleim, and became her lover – was originally sceptical of Handel’s ‘new style’ operas, but his commercial instincts prevailed. Handel was on fire. Haym plunged into the lucrative flames.

The music in Giulio Cesare is spectacular. A box of fireworks that has self-ignited. Many of the arias are furioso – there is a lot to be furious about, Pompeo’s head on a plate courtesy of Tolomeo for one thing – and lend themselves to the sharp choreography that is George’s strength. 

Mostly missing in action in Monaco, I’m afraid. Except, the Opéra Monte-Carlo orchestra is first-rate. Under the baton of baroque specialist, Gianluca Capuano, Les Musiciens du Prince which he has led since 2019 delivered a sparkling interpretation. Only duty forbade me from sitting through the performance with my eyes closed. 

Carlo Vistoli, an Italian counter tenor, sang Giulio Cesare. It wasn’t his fault he had been asked to mimic a crooner, so no blame there. But his voice regularly broke into a deeply lower register. I assume it was intentional, but why? It went far beyond adding colour and was distracting. When was the next “boom” coming?

It comes down to this. If Livermore and Bartoli had wanted to deliver a Giulio Cesare – The End of the Pier Show they should have written a different opera. 

Instead, they mauled Handel’s masterpiece, claiming their infantile treatment made it relevant. Let’s hope this Livermore travesty goes down with the good paddle steamer, Tolemeo. Fatally holed below the waterline, by that dodgy fighter squadron. The bottom of the Nile is exactly where it deserves to be. 

And another thing!

Nevill Holt lives! As I scribble an email pings in telling me the announcement of their 2024 Festival is imminent. I had feared rumours that David Ross’ wonderful Leicestershire venue might be dark this year were true. 

Details are still scarce. The festival will run from 1-26 June and will feature only one opera, Mozart’s The Magic Flute. There will also be a programme of concerts and other arts events. Full details will be announced before February is out. 

As English National Opera knows all too well, the first priority in these cash-straitened times for opera companies, large or small, is survival. The Magic Flute in the golden opera house of Leicestershire will be a must. 

Write to us with your comments to be considered for publication at letters@reaction.life