Giulio Cesare in Egitto

The director Dmitri Tcherniakov, winner of multiple awards, makes his Festival debut with a piece that also marks his debut in the baroque opera repertoire: he will stage Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto in collaboration with the Early-Music specialist Emmanuelle Haïm and a cast of vocalists with ample experience in baroque music. In conversation, he outlined his views on the opera, which are as idiosyncratic as they are exciting.

“To me, the interesting thing about Giulio Cesare is that all the characters are locked in a continuous struggle – a constant state of irreconcilable, deadly antagonism. There is no safe space, and it is impossible to trust anyone or to establish an unstrained relationship with them. Today’s political conflicts look more civilized, at least superficially, while in this opera, everything is out in the open – wild and shamelessly. In my production, I place the eight characters of the opera within circumstances which make the struggle even more dramatic: in a situation which forces them – like the characters in Sartre’s Huis clos (No Exit) – to spend time in an isolated room, cut off from reality. This situation nullifies the positions and social functions they have had so far, and they all have to reacquire them anew.

Die viewers will quickly realize that these are no heroes of antiquity, but humans of our own times. Thanks to stage sets that are brought forward as much as possible towards the auditorium, the audience will be able to follow these people’s passions, instincts and strategies, directly and intensively.

Erotic relationships play a large role in this opera, but they are also part of these power games. Giulio Cesare is not a work about love, but about what is revealed about human nature when we find ourselves in a borderline situation, a critical or desperate position. How do we react then? Will our behaviour surprise even us? Or frighten us?”

First published in the Festival insert of Salzburger Nachrichten