Giulio Cesare

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I watched the live stream of Handel's Giulio Cesare from Salzburg in Cecilia Bartoli's inaugural season as artistic director of the Whitsun Festival in 2012.  The production was enormously distracting, so much so that I wrote mostly about it.  There were crocodiles, a Rolls Royce, deals over oil wells, a fan dance, etc.  And occasional obscene gestures.

What I noticed less of was the incredibly gorgeous singing, especially by Cecilia Bartoli, Andreas Scholl, Anne Sofie von Otter, and Philippe Jaroussky, with Giovanni Antonini conducting.  Jaroussky is at his most beautiful, and his duet with Anne Sofie von Otter is emotional. 

In the past year the stream has become a DVD, and in the last month this DVD has received a Grammy nomination for best opera recording.  Does that happen?  I notice that of this year's 5 nominees, Król Roger and Giulio Cesare are DVDs. 

This is the standard for modern Baroque performance.

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