Who said that passion and politics make for poor bedfellows? Experience Handel’s captivating love story of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, whose audacious affair rewrote the course of history. As sparks fly between these two rulers, love becomes a battlefield, and the most important conquest is that of the heart. But with pretenders to the throne lurking on all sides, desire can sometimes be a double-sided weapon.
“Ms. Pulitzer’s direction was stylized rather than realistic. The gestures and dance routines built into the arias, while strange at first, complemented the music’s formal structure and pulse.”
“I think there are some basic principles that are the same in the sense that these characters need to feel human and real, fallible and faceted. Cleopatra is one of the most famous of few historical queens in over 2,000 years of history. She is an icon now, too, for many people so I wanted to lift her up and celebrate her and challenge the performer playing her to see how far they can go in revealing different aspects of her humanity.”
“Pulitzer successfully reframes a period piece for present times. Pairing board rooms with backstabbing, Pulitzer melds geopolitics with Handel’s score, gorgeously executed by conductor Daniela Candillari. Scaled down to two acts, this contemporary setting gives ‘Julius Caesar’ a cosmopolitan energy.”
“Pulitzer and Candillari have followed Handel’s lead in adjusting the material to suit the circumstances of a new performance. They have succeeded in sustaining the dramatic thrust and letting the characters explore their feelings in a relatable way. When the words are repeated in arias, the emotional expression keeps evolving.”
