Classical review: Giulio Cesare / Falstaff

Published on Sunday 24 May 2009 22:27

**** *** GLYNDEBOURNE FESTIVAL

GLYNDEBOURNE remains serenely untroubled by the recession: it's great to have David McVicar's dazzlingly re-imagined version of Giulio Cesare back in the repertoire. Danielle de Niese's Cleopatra is as sexy as ever, while Sarah Connolly brings a plangent beauty to the title role.

The downside of de Niese's sweetly-sung ebullience is that her moments of despair don't convince, but otherwise Handel's dramatic alternations between comedy and tragedy are grippingly expressed in this melding of mezzo and counter-tenor voices.

Patricia Bardon, as the bereaved Cornelia, and Stephanie d'Oustrac, as her obsessively vengeful son Sesto, make a gloriously effective pairing, while Rachid Ben Abdeslam's high-camp Nireno and Christophe Dumaux's spoilt-popinjay Tolomeo light up the stage.

But while McVicar's witty substitution of the British Empire for the Roman one works perfectly, Richard Jones's sight gag-heavy transposition of Verdi's Falstaff to post-war Britain – with a cod-Hollywood denouement – misfires.

Christopher Purves does a heroic job as Falstaff but fails to communicate the character's physical generosity; Ford exudes neither danger nor paranoia, and the young lovers don't entrance as they should; Marie-Nicole Lemieux's Mistress Quickly is the only character embodying the extravagant, larger-than-life quality the show requires.

And while Giulio Cesare benefits from a flawless period-instrument performance led by Laurence Cummings, it is beyond conductor Vladimir Jurowski's powers to hoist this oddly dull Falstaff aloft.