Operas as concerts can be challenging, especially for a work with a four-hour running time, including two intermissions. Handel benefits from eye candy: flashy garb, elaborate scenery, routines with backup dancers — anything to keep hold of our attention. And yet if it’s not Baroque, don’t fix it. Carnegie was packed on Sunday, perhaps with people who just want good music performed well. The English Concert does that consistently.
To write “Cesare,” Handel and the librettist Nicola Francesco Haym drew from fictionalized accounts of the end of Julius Caesar’s civil war. After defeating Pompeo, Cesare follows his rival to Egypt. Cesare intends to grant clemency to Pompeo, who is assassinated anyway at the behest of Tolomeo, the king of Egypt. Personal vengeance, romantic conceit and cunning tomfoolery ensue in narratives that weave among eight characters.
Despite its themes of political corruption, murder and revenge, the opera has plenty of unserious moments, and on Sunday the English Concert punctuated its shtick. The head of Pompeo was offered to Cesare in a Macy’s shopping bag. During Act II, Cesare entered through the back of the house, took a seat and sang while bumping elbows with surrounding patrons. Tolomeo “died,” then stood up, lethal weapon in hand, and acknowledged the audience before sauntering off the stage.
All the singers were in fine form. The countertenor Christophe Dumaux, once the industry’s go-to Tolomeo, now sings the title role with regularity. His voice has richened, deepened, though not at the expense of his instrument’s trademark shimmer. As Cesare, he’s as stately as he is charming, relishing every facetious bit. (Honorable mention to the horn player Ursula Paludan Monberg, who hammed it up alongside him during the aria “Va tacito e nascosto.”)
The soprano Louise Alder was equally delightful. Her Cleopatra, who initially seeks to beguile Cesare only to develop a schoolgirl’s crush, was charismatic and fully realized, her voice sparkling like the diadem she donned in the final scene. The countertenor John Holiday was a nasty Tolomeo with a stylish approach to the music. Holiday navigated the role’s demanding shifts in register with grace, even when villainous.
