Caesar conquers Buxton: ETO's slimmed-down Giulio Cesare strikes just the right note

In its full, uncut pomp, Giulio Cesare in Egitto is long enough to have been presented by English Touring Opera in 2017 across two separate evenings. This time, in a reworking of the same production by General Director James Conway, Handel’s opera has been trimmed to a more manageable two and a half hours (plus interval), jettisoning pages of recitative, a handful of arias and the occasional da capo while keeping the contours of the plot more or less intact. 

By Baroque standards it's a relatively straightforward storyline anyway: Cesare comes, sees, and conquers both Egypt and Cleopatra, evades murder by her scheming brother Tolomeo, and makes allies of the vengeful widow and son of his slain enemy Pompeo. Conway’s production is straightforward as well, and mostly straight faced, prioritising the opera’s human drama over comedy or spectacle. A colour palette of burnished gold and faience-blue (coincidentally rather close to that of Buxton’s Matcham-designed Opera House) nods towards Ancient Egypt but otherwise the setting is 1724, the year of the opera’s composition, and the elegant simplicity of Cordelia Chisholm’s costumes and single set, alongside Conway’s unfussy direction, allows plenty of scope for subtlety amid the vocal fireworks.

With the finer points of Cesare and Cleopatra's courtship left on the cutting room floor, the relationship between Cornelia and Sesto becomes the production's emotional focus: a loving mother-son bond now shot through with grief and the urge for revenge. Carolyn Dobbin gave a towering performance as Cornelia: her expansive, bronze-hued mezzo and magnetic presence radiated poise and righteous fury in equal measure, and a sidelong glance in the show’s final moments suggested her truce with Cesare might be short lived. Margo Arsane's lighter tone and agile lyricism, meanwhile, underscored Sesto’s youth and fragile state, sailing through martial coloratura one moment only to collapse in tears the next. 

In the title role, Francis Gush’s soft-grained timbre and amiable stage presence were more at home in Cesare’s romantic endeavours than his military ones, although “Va, tacito” – one of the production’s cleverest bits of staging – was very nicely managed, wobbly horn solo notwithstanding. Of course, in the long and venerable tradition of Cesares everywhere, he was outshone by his Cleopatra: Susanna Hurrell was a beguiling queen, utterly convincing as both political operator and love interest, and if her silvery soprano lost a touch of colour at its extremes, everywhere else it gleamed.

As Tolomeo, Alexander Chance’s vivid, forthright countertenor was among the strongest voices in the cast, its heroic sheen all the more unsettling when coupled with the character’s awkward physicality and creepy muddling of sex and power. Kieron-Connor Valentine mightn’t have had much to do as Nireno – it’s a small role even without cuts – but carried off what’s left with panache: it’s not surprising to see he’s also listed as the cover for Tolomeo. 

Amid an embarrassment of high-voiced riches, a pair of Edwards – bass Edward Hawkins as Achilla and baritone Edward Jowle as Curio – provided welcome, earthbound contrast. Hawkins in particular worked hard to bring nuance to a problematic character, while Jowle’s easy authority, both vocal and temperamental, were a strong foil to Gush’s slightly scattier Cesare.

Giulio Cesare contains several small but vital interventions for chorus, an inconvenience for a small touring company which ETO has neatly sidestepped by engaging a different local choir for every town it visits. In Buxton, a contingent from the Buxton Musical Society sang with well-drilled enthusiasm from the theatre’s upper circle, a timely reminder of the wider world impacted by the political machinations of those on stage. Under conductor Sergey Rybin, the Old Street Band, ETO’s period orchestra, delivered an idiomatic if uneven performance: lapses of intonation and coordination were too frequent to be entirely ignored, but tempi were pleasingly lively, and at their best they played with verve and richness of colour.

Handel's opera is packed so full with compelling characters and sensational music – some of his best for the operatic stage –  that it can withstand all manner of stagings, from the provocative to the kitsch to the rigidly traditional. Conway’s is none of the above. But his lightness of touch, particularly when entrusted to such a strong cast of singing actors, is as illuminating an approach as any other, and even in its cut down state, it rings utterly true.