The English Concert

In the mid 1720s, George Frideric Handel, now in his late thirties, was at the peak of his career in London. As noted, conductor Jane Glover summarizes in her engaging biography Handel in London, “There were many positive elements in his life: financial and domestic freedom, court approbation, the Royal Academy of Music, the best singers and musicians in Europe, a supportive team in his workshop, and, for the most part, trusted and invigorating colleagues.” In 1723, Handel moved into a new five-story townhouse at 25 Brook Street in London’s fashionable Grosvenor neighborhood; there he would live, compose prolifically, and work with his creative team until his death in 1759. The stars were now perfectly aligned for him, and the result was the “Miracle Year” of 1724 and 1725 when he created a trio of his greatest operas: Giulio Cesare (premiered February 24, 1724), Tamerlano (October 31, 1724), and Rodelinda (February 13, 1725).

Not to be confused with today’s British conservatory of the same name, the early 18th-century Royal Academy was a consortium of prominent Londoners—including King George I, a devoted opera lover—who combined their considerable financial resources to sponsor Italian opera in London. In 1719, they hired Handel as their music director and chief composer and established their new company at the King’s Theatre in the Haymarket.

In writing three operas within such a short period, Handel was not leaning on a formulaic blueprint, for each of these works is radically different from the others. Set in ancient Egypt, Giulio Cesare is a tragi-comedy—with considerable emphasis on the comic element—of Julius Caesar’s early years as he aids the young Cleopatra in reclaiming the Egyptian throne from her sinister brother Ptolomy. By contrast, Tamerlano is pure tragedy and one of Handel’s darkest works: a story about the Tartar conqueror Tamburlaine and his abuse of his noble Turkish captive Bajazet. Though it also has strong tragic elements, Rodelinda is a domestic drama about the power of conjugal love (a theme Beethoven would take up nearly a century later in Fidelio).

Vital to the success of these operas was Handel’s trusty right hand, librettist Nicola Haym, who took unwieldy stories from centuries past and shaped them into compelling dramas. Originally from Rome and a cellist as well as a writer, Haym was not just a journeyman librettist, but a close collaborator with Handel, who shared his theatrical ideals. Having already created six librettos for the Saxon before Giulio Cesare, he now worked alongside him on the ground floor of 25 Brook Street.

Haym drew his material for Cesare from a libretto written by Giacomo Francesco Bussani in 1677 for an opera on the same subject by Antonio Sartorio, as well as a revised version produced in Milan in 1685. However, Haym’s finished libretto has a dramatic power and cohesion well beyond what can be found in these sources; thus, much of the scenario seems to be of his own invention. For his part, Handel, typically a phenomenally fast worker, took more time over this score, working away at it from early summer 1723 to its premiere in February 1724.

The result of Handel and Haym’s painstaking work was a masterpiece that many commentators consider to be his finest opera—even one of the greatest of the entire 18th century. “Almost twice as long as its predecessor Flavio, Giulio Cesare is in a class of its own,” writes Glover. “Every aspect of it—its musical range and invention, its dramatic credibility, its pace, its characterization, the very sweep of its theatrical narration—is consistently excellent.” Its first audiences loved it so much that it ran an unprecedented 13 performances and was revived for another 10 the following season. Today it remains Handel’s most frequently performed opera.

A Closer Listen
For this story about one of ancient Rome’s legendary leaders, Handel created a score whose dimensions were greater than anything he’d accomplished before. He used his largest orchestra, now enriched with the addition of four horns, which a few years earlier he’d employed in his Water Music, but never in an opera. He also added a colorful group of nine instruments—including the giant lute-like theorbo, harp, gamba, oboe, bassoon, and string soloists—as an onstage ensemble depicting the nine Muses to intensify the exotic seductiveness of Cleopatra’s “V’adoro, pupille” in Act II.

Alongside this virtuoso orchestra, several of the leading vocal stars of the era shone in a parade of Handel’s most unforgettable arias. Cesare himself was played by the most popular singer of the day in London, the castrato alto Francesco Bernardi, known professionally as Il Senesino for his birthplace of Siena. The composer and flautist Johann Quantz described him: “He had a powerful, clear, equal, and sweet contralto voice, with a perfect intonation and an excellent shake [trill]. His manner of singing was masterly and his elocution unrivaled.”

Handel portrays Cesare as both a virile man of action and an ardent lover, easily susceptible to Cleopatra’s charms. He also possesses a philosophical side in his negative reaction to the assassination of his former enemy, Pompeo. Rather than rejoicing that a rival is out of the way in Act I, he eulogizes him at the urn containing his ashes in the extraordinary recitativo accompagnato “Alma del gran Pompeo.” In a solemn Largo tempo and dark G-sharp minor, Cesare meditates on the frailty of humankind that one moment wields worldly power, then is returned to dust. “Pitiful life, how frail is your state! A breath forms you and a breath destroys you.” Decades later, the London musician and journalist Charles Burney called it “the finest piece of accompanied Recitative, … with which I am acquainted. The modulation is learned and so uncommon that there is hardly a chord which the ear expects.”

A little later, Cesare and Tolomeo meet face to face for the first time. Tolomeo cordially invites Cesare to stay in his palace, but the Roman is already wary of the Egyptian’s motives. Handel captures his mood brilliantly in the prowling da capo aria “Va tacito e nascosto.” Since the words employ imagery of the hunt, Handel complements them with a solo obbligato horn, which stalks alongside the voice as the two men size each other up. This sound combination was a new one for London audiences and must have produced a sensation.

In Act II, we hear a very different side of Cesare in the aria “Se in fiorito,” his enraptured response to Cleopatra’s “V’adoro, pupille.” The words are about a bird in a meadow whose song is sweeter because it cannot be seen. Handel’s music takes the form of a pastoral musette dance with drone bass and a solo violin mimicking the bird’s voice. Singer and violin duet charmingly throughout, and the return of the da capo inspires wonderful cadenza-like improvisations for both.

Cesare’s following tryst with Cleopatra is interrupted by news that a mob is outside threatening to attack the Roman. Immediately, Cesare halts his lovemaking and leaps into action with the fiery “Al lampo dell’armi” (“Amid the flashing of arms”). Accompanied by a rushing full orchestra, this is a fiery demonstration of the singer’s coloratura and breath control. Again, the da capo repeat allows the virtuosity to blaze higher.

In Act III, Cesare, having come ashore after his life-saving swim across Alexandria’s harbor, sings arguably his greatest number: the combined accompanied recitative and da capo aria “Dall’ondoso periglio.” As Handel scholar Winton Dean wrote: “The whole scene is a masterly synthesis of dramatic action and musical form.” Here Cesare is swept by a whole range of conflicting emotions. He is grateful to be alive, but realizes he has no troops to protect him. He desperately wonders what has happened to his beloved Cleopatra. And seeing dead and wounded lying on the beach, he fears what may come. Handel uses beautiful rocking music in the orchestra, suggestive of waves and sea breezes, as a prelude to the recitative and to accompany the aria “Aure” (“Ye breezes”), thus tying together this scena as it continually changes its mode of expression.

Cleopatra, the Eternal Fascinator
As biographer Jonathan Keates wrote, “If Handel’s operas, like those of almost every other 18th-century composer, are primarily focused on the singer as vocal artist, they are also concerned with the credible presentation of human feeling.” Handel’s genius for creating multifaceted, fully rounded characters through music far exceeded his many competitors. And this lifelong bachelor excelled in producing memorable female characters—like Agrippina, Alcina, and Cleopatra—who effortlessly dominate their operas.

In any performance of Giulio Cesare, Handel’s portrayal of the young Cleopatra steals the show. Handel wrote this magnificent role for his current prima donna Francesca Cuzzoni (see page 23), who would also create Rodelinda. The Italian soprano was peerless in her technique and in the beauty of her sound. A contemporary musician remembered her thus: “It was difficult for the hearer to determine whether she most excelled in slow or rapid airs. …so grateful and touching was the natural tone of her voice that she rendered pathetic whatever she sang ….” Handel rewarded her with eight glorious arias and a duet with Cesare.

In her earliest arias, Cleopatra seems like a giddy teenager, enamored of her own beauty and her ability to make men fall in love with her. But from Act II onward, she grows more mature and complex—becoming capable of loving another and fully assuming the role of Queen of Egypt. This new maturation is first revealed at the top of Act II in the ravishing “V’adoro, pupille,” when she produces a sophisticated theatrical scene to lure Cesare. Handel fills it with seductive power, combining a warmly sensuous orchestra enhanced by onstage band with one of his most beautiful vocal melodies in the style of a slow saraband dance.

If one had to pick the greatest single piece in Giulio Cesare, most would choose Cleopatra’s tragic aria in F-sharp minor “Se pièta,” which follows Cesare’s sudden call to battle late in Act II. As she hears offstage voices crying “Death to Caesar!,” Cleopatra realizes the depth of her love for the Roman and that if he is killed, she wants to join him in death. Wrote Dean: “It is a prayer from the anguish of her soul, Bach-like in its harmonic probing of emotion and scored in rich, dark colors.” Propelled by the downward cascades of the violins, its beautiful lines make time stop in place for nine spellbinding minutes.

As Cleopatra’s situation grows more dire at the beginning of Act III, when Ptolemy’s soldiers seem to have won, she is languishing in prison and believes Cesare to be dead; she responds with the mournful “Piangerò,” bewailing her fate. Harkening back to the days of Monteverdi, this most poignant of Handel’s melodies is built over a descending passacaglia bass. However, Cleopatra has not given up: in the faster B section, she vows to return as a ghost to torment Tolomeo. However, when Cesare unexpectedly reappears and frees her, she regains her fighting spirit in the brilliant coloratura aria “Da tempeste,” before rousing her soldiers to join Cesare’s in finally defeating Tolomeo. The text plays on the imagery of a feared shipwreck and the heart’s joy when the ship returns safely to port.

Juxtaposed against the two starring roles, Handel created two other major characters who are the opera’s most tragic: Cornelia, the widow of Pompey, and her adolescent son, Sesto. Handel wrote Cornelia for the English mezzo soprano Anastasia Robinson, who had been featured in many of his recent operas; because of his youth, Sesto was given to the soprano Margherita Durastanti rather than a castrato. A noble Roman matron of great poise and courage, Cornelia is also a beautiful woman who, most unwillingly, attracts the attentions of all the male characters, except Cesare. Handel has given her several of Giulio Cesare’s most emotionally moving arias, most of them in very slow tempos. The first of these is the saraband “Priva son d’ogni conforto,” sung shortly after she has suffered the devastating shock of seeing her husband’s severed head paraded before Cesare. This is a relatively unadorned aria; it doesn’t even have an orchestral introduction. Nevertheless, it is a lament of piercing beauty, intensified by the addition of a solo flute, the traditional instrument of mourning, and emotionally compelling harmonic movement.

Sesto has also had a heavy burden laid upon him, not least because he believes he has the duty to avenge his father. Shortly after Cornelia’s lament in Act I, he sings “Svegliatevi nel core,” a split-personality da capo, in which the B section switches tempo, meter, and key as Sesto listens to his father’s ghost. Introduced by furious strings in the A section, he tries to rouse his spirits to kill Tolomeo. More persuasive, however, is the slower middle section in which he hears his father’s voice saying, “My son, from you severity is expected.”

The importance of Cornelia and Sesto’s roles to Handel is confirmed by his awarding them the closing number of Act I, the magnificent mother-and-son duet “Son nata a lagrimar” (“I was born to weep”). At his first confrontation with Tolomeo, Sesto has challenged him to a duel. Tolomeo orders Sesto to be imprisoned and sentences Cornelia to labor at the seraglio. As they part, perhaps forever, the two lament their fate with this heartbreaking E-minor duet in a gently rocking siciliano rhythm. Dean: “The drooping theme, sung by each voice in turn, conveys an impression of overwhelming pathos.… This is one of the score’s supreme moments.”

When the 1723–1724 season opened, Handel had two rival composers, Giovanni Bononcini and Attilio Ariosti, serving along with him at the King’s Theatre. By the end of the season, they had both left. It was impossible to compete with Handel’s musical and theatrical genius or his burgeoning popularity with the London public.
—Janet E. Bedell © 2025

Janet E. Bedell is a program annotator and feature writer who writes for Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Caramoor Festival of the Arts, and other musical organizations.