Search - Handel, Baker, Mackerras :: Julius Caesar Scenes

Too much and too little of a good thing

klavierspiel | TX, USA | 12/15/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This CD of excerpts from a complete recording in English of Handel's opera seria highlights Baker's contribution in the title role. She sings with her usual impeccable technique, distinctive timbre and interpretive authority throughout. However, the omission of most music for the other characters (Valerie Masterson's somewhat white-voiced "V'adoro, pupille" notwithstanding) results in a certain monotony of effect--there are better ways to introduce Dame Janet's art to a newcomer than to hear her sing seventy minutes worth of one Handel role. Cutting the opera in this way also makes one appreciate Handel's sense of musical and dramatic variety within the confines of the opera seria form; Caesar's arias are all of a piece and quite different from the music for the other main characters, Cleopatra and Ptolemy. Their effect is measurably reduced by their being deprived of their setting in the whole."