The four-hour long opera-seria in three acts, written in 1724 in London for the Royal Academy of Music by George Frideric Handel with a libretto by Nicola Francesca Haym, had been fully dedicated to the themes of love and revenge. Protagonist characters alto castrato Giulio Cesare and soprano Cleopatra are developing the love theme through the opera with their eight solo arias and two recitativi each, and a finale duet “Caro! -Bella!”; while the static protagonists contralto Cornelia (three arias, two ariosos) and soprano Sesto (four arias and a duet “Son nata a lagrimar” with Cornelia) focus on the theme of revenge for their murdered husband/father Pompeo. They all, together with the bass – Tolomeo’s general Achilla whose allegiance change to Cleopatra’s side due to the rivalry with Tolomeo over Cornelia, seek to overthrow the tyrannical prince of Egypt in “the quest for a virtuous rulership”[1]. This opera-seria communicates the moral grounds by allowing the positive love (of Cesare and Cleopatra) and the positive vengeance (of Sesto and Cornelia) to win over the negative love (of Tolomeo and Achilla) and the negative vengeance (Tolomeo).
The success of the Italian opera written by German composer for the British audience lies in the mixture of European musical styles as well as in the dramatic representation of the basic temperament types (sanguine, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic) of the characters[2]. For example, the overture in A-Major which contains French courtly dotted Sarabande rhythms with shifting harmonies reflects on the unstable mood of the beginning of the opera, but the finale in B-flat Major / G major, written in a grandeur style of Italian and German rhetorical thought pronounces the victory of the true love and righteous vengeance over the malice of self-centered ignorance of power. Unlike the traditional opera-seria which focuses on the drama before music, Handel had shortened all the Italian spoken recitativi for the sake of the prolonged arias da capo[3] which now express the progression of the story even more than the recitativi and signify an emotional crisis for one of the characters at a time.
The key relations of the arias suggest the opposition of the dramatic characters. Cesare is masculine, triumphant and victorious, sings his first aria of the first act in the heroic D-Major “Presti omai l’egizia terra”, then in hunting/noble mode of F-major “Va tacito e nascosto” (dictated by the obligato natural horn in F, the only horn solo in Handel’s operas) where he explains the qualities of a virtuous ruler to Tolomeo and states his own moral superiority; the C-minor is used in the rage aria “Empio, dirò, tu sei, togliti”; Cesare’s recitativi tend to be written in the brave mode of C-major. Cesare uses the occasion for the nearly chromatic wandering key in the recitativo accompagnato “Alma del gran Pompeo” in scene VII of the first act, reflecting on the matter of death of a hero. Cleopatra, in her turn, sings in love-related keys of E-major – the ironic aria “Non disperar; chi sa? se al regno” mocking her brother, A-major “Tutto può donna vezzosa”, and B-flat major “Tu la mia stella sei” hoping to succeed to the throne if she attracts Cesare. Unlike in the first act, in the second act, disguised as “Lydia” Cleopatra sings the seductive aria “V’adoro pupille” in a mood of hunting-the-hunter of Cesare’s F-major, but in ¾ rhythm (unlike 4/4 in “Va tacito”), which is accompanied by nine “muses of Parnassus”[4]: nine solo instruments (oboe, bassoons, violins, viola, viola da gamba, theorbo, harp, and violoncello) with the muted string orchestra and basso continuo. Cleopatra, originally sung by soprano Francesca Cuzzoni, is the only character in the opera who is constantly developing: from a spoiled, used to luxury, flirtatious, and shallow power seeker of the first act she turns into an almost masculine – courageous and desperate romantic hero(ine) of the scene VIII of the second act where she sings the F-sharp minor aria “Se pietà di me non senti” praying to gods to spare Cesare’s life or “she shall die”. In the third act Cleopatra laments the loss of her army, hope, and Cesare, and promises to revenge in the C-sharp minor/ E major aria of the III scene “Piangerò la sorte mia”: “but when I am dead, from all around, the tyrant, both night and day, having become a ghost, I will haunt”[5].
The sense of gender identity of Handel’s characters had been more informed by the characters of the original cast than the qualities of the roles in the opera. The title role was performed by alto castrato Seresino who was constantly fighting with Handel and was known as “an arrogant man”[6]. Tolomeo was sung by another castrato Gaetano Berenstadt, and the third alto castrato Giuseppe Bigonzi appeared as Cleopatra’s servant, the actual castrato Nireno. Sesto, a young boy, was performed by soprano Margherita Durastanti, and Cornelia by contralto Anastasia Robinson. The two bass voices were conceived as militant and assigned to Giuseppe Maria Boschi as Tolomeo’s general Achilla and John Lagarde as Cesare’s general Curio. These were Italian singers who occupied British stages. In spite of the critics of Handel having an issue with the Italian language of his libretti, a tongue unknown to the majority of the British audience, the attempts to write an opera in English were not successful during the lifespan of the composer.
[1] Marjo Suominen. “Embodiment of Love in Handel´s Opera Giulio Cesare” in Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Music & Emotion (ICME3). Eds. Geoff Luck & Olivier Brabant, Jyväskylä, Finland, 11th – 15th June 2013, p. 3.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Brian Trowell. “Handel: Julius Cesar” in Sir Charles Mackerras: Handel’s Giulio Cesare. Chandos: Opera in English, Peter Moores foundation, p.10.
[4] Martin Pearlman. Handel’s Giulio Cesare – Program Notes. April 20, 2017. retrieved from: http://www.bostonbaroque.org/news-posts/handels-giulio-cesare-program-notes-by-martin-pearlman .
[5] George Frideric Handel. Giulio Cesare in Egitto. Ed. by Frideric Chrysander, the Deutsche Händelgesellschaft Edition, p. 132.
[6] M. Pearlman. Handel’s Giulio Cesare.
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