FringeReview UK 2026

Guilio Cesare in Egitto

New Trinity Baroque and Arcola Theatre

Genre: classical, Historical, Mainstream Theatre, Opera and Operatic Theatre, Puppetry, Theatre, Translation

Venue: Grimeborn, Arcola Theatre, Dalston, Studio 1

Festival: FringeReview UK

Low Down

Review

New Trinity Baroque might seem new to some, but with Orquesta’s Marcio da Silva directing, lighting and singing a bass-baritone role; and the same ensemble’s Predrag Gosta as artistic director, conductor, producer and set/costume designer, you get a strong family resemblance. They’ve been for two productions as Orquesta Ensemble. This final one of the season – Handel’s Guilio Cesare in Egitto  – marks a superb conclusion to the Grimeborn Festival. Guilio Cesare plays in the Arcola’s Studio 1 till September 5.

Handel’s Guilio Cesare in Egitto was written in 1724, in the midst of his greatest successes. It’s also his longest. Uninterrupted it would play around four hours fifteen minutes. This production with a 15-minute interval lasts two hours 45 (they claim two 30 but like the Mozart last week, it overruns and they know it!).

The production is both cogent and a triumph, the singers superlative and the staging both clear – on the whole – and deft. There’s moments where greater clarity would help, but these are relatively minor.

So in truth about one hour 45 is cut. That’s not unreasonable. Even an all-day Glyndebourne production in 2024 snipped a bit and all productions have to. New Trinity Baroque (NTB) make deft ones to the first act – we cut to the head as it were: of Pompey brought in on a platter. Very Salomé.

Staging here though counts for much, and dramatic scenes added near the end frame this opera politically and emotionally.

Caesar and Pompey are having a civil war. So is Egypt – more politely – with siblings Cleopatra and Tolemeo battling it out in arias. But Tolemeo captures and beheads Pompey thinking it would please Caesar though it doesn’t. Cleopatra angles to seduce Caesar to her side but ends up falling for him, as he does her. Pompey’s widow Cornelia is desired by both Tolemeo and his general Achilla. So they’ll fall out. Cornelia refuses them both. Her son Sesto seeks revenge. And ultimately kills Tolemeo. And inevitably Caesar and Cleopatra become lovers as she declares loyalty to Rome.

The power of the opera lies in its subtle shading of the main protagonists, as they’re swayed this way and that. And the outstanding quality of the music has ensured it perhaps top billing in Handel revivals.

Gosta has decided a dais and throne as well as a small raised platform centre stage. Later it’s bare and provides a promontory where characters swoon to bewail their fate. In the first half though it’s topped by a curious Pharo lighthouse (aka Wonder of the World). Though subtly lit with religious symbolism – da Silva’s lighting design is outstanding, pinpoint and atmospheric – it often resembles a penis erected by Naum Gabo: master of the exo-skeletal look.

There’s a couple of staging decisions both striking (nearly everyone masked save Caesar at one point) and proleptic. In one late scene Cleopatra sees in a dumb show a vision of Caesar’s assassination. And minor-keyed sinfonia music is re-channelled. Neat use of puppetry and lopping of heads is discreetly witty, but never guyed.

Similarly after the triumphal conclusion there’s a recession – and recessional – in the minor to play out. Such modulated finales seem a feature of Handel opera recently. The same happened (more briefly) in a production of Rinaldo here two weeks ago. Baroque opera happy endings – unlike say classical ones – seem a step too far for the 21st century. They’re often more formulaic than subsequent periods. Though many work, one can see the pull to tweak them slightly. Surtitles projecting a slightly quaint (and once or twice garbled) English are ideally clear.

There’s some edgy sexual assaults – difficult to stage as the victim of unwanted attentions has to wait for the predator’s aria to finish. It’s handled deftly for the most part; though Cornelia and Cleopatra lie back on the plinth in surrender mode which looks – and particularly before the interval – like compliance.

Certainly that was enhanced by Da Silva’s other weapon: stripping to his waist with a fine show of pecs and taking Cornelia’s outer dress off. You wonder why he didn’t try this in last year’s Don Giovanni. It makes an impression.

Da Silva with his superbly burnished… voice and cut-through diction made a dash with a couple of arias, particularly the latter “Dal fulgor” when he’s had it with Cornelia and then his master Tolomeo. In the opera, cut here (as are a few characters without real loss) is the point where mortally wounded Achilla does something noble.

Cornelia (Frederica Mai) is the tragic figure, consoled a little by release and restorative vengeance. Mai’s dark contralto voice (very few of those around) ravishes “Nel tuo senor” with its death-wish near the start. Mai’s rich voice with its somewhat covered tone sounds the perpetual plummet of grief without palling.

Sesto’s hit-rate is impressive. Silvija Radjen Kumar ‘s coloratura soprano seethes from the start: “Svegliatevi Nel core” with its near suicidal fury, though preventing Cornelia from just such an action. “Cara speme” follows more hopefully. “L’Angue offeso” hangs in the balance and with Cornelia there’s “L’Aura che spira” and the triumphant “La giustizia”. All in the steely range Kumar delivers from furious despair through rallying to a gleaming series of top notes. Best of all I’ve though is the duet Kumar and Mai sing: “Son nata a lagrimar” which blending is one of the magical points of the evening.

Julia Portela Pinon in her mezzo role as Tolomeo gets the slithery recitatives but also in “Si spietata” a vision of the world according to Tolomeo. Pinon is a mezzo with reach and bite and there’s glittering menace in her delivery as well as stand-offs with Da Silva’s Achilla later on. It could have been so different. One purpose of the production is to make us see how the world might have fine had, say, Pompey lived.

Tadaslava Vorgic’s Cleopatra has like several here a world-class soprano blaze. In aria after aria. Disguised (as initially to Caesar) or not, she brings depth and difference as Cleopatra. From her softly rousing “Non disperar” through the flirty ‘Tutto puo” and the sudden “Tu la mia Stella” and when she falls for Caesar a radiant “V’Adoro, pupille”. Handel’s variety if not as infinite as Shakespeare’s Cleopatra is impressive. His librettist Nicola Francesco Haym gave him enough to work with.

Vorgic’s martial warning Venere Bella” and her opposing helpless “Se Pieta” are worlds from each other. Then there’s the greatest aria when Cleopatra languishes imprisoned: “Piangero”. This latter aria which seems to predict the great “Scherza Infida” aria of Ariodante from 1735, is the highpoint of the evening and is received as such, rapturously. Vorgic shades each verse differently and pours the hopeless throbbing obsession as the strings in particular pulse round in expressive melismas. Vorgic sings like a nightmare and the world stands still.

That’s not Vorgic’s final word either. “Da tempeste” dares storms and the duet with Caesar “Caro/Bella” is a major-key blaze. This time the minor shadows and ends the opera as earlier material is inserted.

Sandro Ross’s counter-tenor in the leading role is a ringing instrument of stratosphere, trumpets and shaded doubt. From the desolate contemplation of Pompey’s head in “Ah del Grand Pompeo” it establishes Caesar as very different from the martial obvious.

However come to that and in the great “Va tacito” “like a hunter” nearing prey and watching his hosts for signs of murder, Rossi brings a war-map alive with sentries in this watchful aria: staking out where the enemy are and where their knives are hidden. It’s dramatically well-handled too and steely exchanges just before handled with dispatch. The famous obbligato horn is absent in this eleven-piece baroque line-up. I then wondered about the Flanders and Swann “I’ve lost that horn/gorn” moment as it were: and speculated that Mark Wilson’s nuggety bassoon might manage the honours. It did. Wilson’s bassoon indeed underscores much of the orchestral colour, with both humour and plangent interjections.

Rossi’s counter-tenor range is indeed stratospheric. In “Se in fiorito” he’s amorous and in scrapes of survival like “Dall’ omdoso” and “Aure, deh per pieta” consoling, shadowed, doubting. By contrast hauling himself out of a river in “Quel torrente” Rossi conveys a mix of sheer exhaustion and steely reserve in the modulated pants of someone half-drowned.

The 11-piece orchestra led by Gosta on harpsichord are exemplary. Absolutely period they’re authentic enough to need tuning several times in what’s still in Studio 1 a hothouse. All play baroque instruments tuned to period pitch 415 mhz.

This is a first rate ensemble playing with shape and drive thriughout. Simone Pirri as leader enjoys some exposed violin solos but an unusual cadenza based on “Va tacito” enters at one point as the production is in brief transition. Matthew Millay, Sara Matovic, Kate Allsop on violins (Allsop also recorder), Ana Turbica on viola and Jacob Garside on a particularly resonant cello and Aaron Aguaya Juarez on a plucky basso continuo underscores that, and joining Wilson on winds is Andres Villalobos Lepiz on a memorably pastoral-sounding oboe; and Louis Maidan on chitarrone.

The Grimeborn audience get such gestures. Certainly more sophisticated than the Glyndebourne one remarking after the 2024 tercentenary production of this opera: “Is Caesar the one with the girly voice?” “Which of the black-clad floosies is Cleopatra?” And ” Did Handel write a serious Julius Caesar too?” None of that here.

In truth there were a lot of black-clad actors tonight. These underpinned all the remarkable clothing props and bangles slipped on and off. The costume-changes are as remarkable as the costumes. These lend amplitude and weight to the production. Though more cut than say a larger opera house would be – and it’s cut there too – at its length it’s very substantial. Vocally and dramatically compelling, this is as good a smaller-scaled Handel opera can get. Let’s hope it’s revived and returns.

Published September 5, 2026 by Simon Jenner