Giulio Cesare (DVD)

Contents

Peter Sellars' daring and novel adaptation of Handel's opera Giulio Cesare previously released on Laser Disc and VHS is now available on DVD!

Though sung in the original Italian, Giulio Cesare is relocated in the unspecified future in the Middle East. Cesare is the unquestioned leader of a major world power who visits the Empire's number one global trouble spot. The story unfolds in a major international hotel still under construction but already victim of terrorist bombs. Ptolemy is a 14-year-old self styled local potentate and Cleopatra is his beautiful and spoiled elder sister.

Sellars' imaginative restaging of the opera proves to be still politically relevant today.

Included in this DVD are the English subtitles supplied by director Peter Sellars himself, specifically created to match and enhance his personal vision of this opera.

Sellars' Giulio Cesare is performed uncut. The result is a more than four hour extravaganza!

Peter Sellars is one of the leading theatre, opera and television directors in the world today, having directed more than one hundred productions, large and small, across America and internationally. His contemporary visions of Mozart's operas Cosi fan tutte, Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni are already available on DVD.

Jeffrey Gall (Giulio Cesare), one of America's most prominent countertenors, leads a strong cast: the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (Sesto) who also appears on Peter Sellars' DVD of Mozart's Don Giovanni (as Donna Elvira); baritone James Maddalena (Achilla) first gained international recognition for his notable portrayal of Richard Nixon (Peter Sellars) in the world premiere of John Adams's Nixon in China at the Houston Grand Opera which was telecast nationally on the PBS Great Performances series and which won an Emmy Award; Drew Minter (Tolomeo), known for his performances and recordings of the music of Handel, has more than two dozen of Handel's dramatic works on the stage to his credit as either singer or director, and sometimes as both. Craig Smith conducts the Sachsische Staatskapelle Dresden.

Susan Larson, Soprano; Mary Westbrook-Geha, Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson, Cheryl Cobb, Mezzo-sopranos; Jeffrey Gall, Drew Minter, Countertenors; James Maddalena, Herman Hildebrand, Baritones; Sachsische Staatskapelle Dresden; Craig Smith, Conductor; Peter Sellars, Director.