Giulio Cesare at the Grange: superb music performances compensate for David Alden’s scattershot approach to Handel’s masterpiece

Handel: Giulio Cesare – Zheng Jiang, Owen Willetts, Jess Dandy – The Grange Festival (Photo: Richard Hubert Smith)

Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto; Tim Mead, Sarah Brady, Jess Dandy, Zheng Jiang, James Atkinson, director: David Alder, Early Opera Company, conductor Christian Curnyn; The Grange Festival
Reviewed 25 June 2026

Superbly satisfying musical performances all round from a cast who enter with a will into director David Alden’s eclectic vision, clearly responding to his approach no matter how scattershot the ideas. 

When watching modern productions of Handel’s Giulio Cesare it is easy to get a bit blazé. But it is worth remembering quite how far we have come. New York City Opera’s ground-breaking production of the work with Beverly Sills dazzling as Cleopatra and a bass Cesare (Norman Treigle), came in 1966, the first uncut performance (in modern times) with voices at the correct pitch was at the Barber Institute in Birmingham in 1972, then English National Opera’s production directed by John Copley, conducted by Charles Mackerras with Janet Baker and Valerie Masterson came in 1978. This was cut, but sympathetically, and Copley’s production was rather stately yet it demonstrated that this type of opera belonged in the modern opera house. By 2005, at Glyndebourne, David McVicar’s production had the confidence to reinvent the work without doing it violence and we now had period instruments in the pit.

Veteran director David Alden‘s career has paralleled much of this timeline. He began directing at Opera Omaha in the 1970s and his first European production was Verdi’s Rigoletto for Scottish Opera in the late 1970s (and yes, I was there). He became famous (infamous) for his productions at ENO during the powerhouse era and I remember his production of Handel’s Ariodante as being a powerful example of the way modern theatre direction could be brought to Handel.

Alden’s enthusiasm for Handel seems undimmed and the Grange Festival invited him to direct a new production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare at this year’s festival. It turns out to be the first time Alden has directed by work. We caught the final performance on 25 June 2026. Christian Curnyn conducted the Early Opera Company with Tim Mead as Giulio Cesare, Sarah Brady as Cleopatra, Hugh Cutting as Tolomeo, Jess Dandy as Cornelia, Zheng Jiang as Sesto, James Atkinson as Achilla, Owen Willetts as Nireno, and Tristan Hambleton as Curio. Designs were by Jon Morrell, movement by Tim Claydon and lighting by Matthew Richardson. There was no chorus (the choral numbers were sung by the ensemble), but there was a movement group of five. Continuo was provided by Oliver John Ruthven (harpsichord), Eligio Quinteiro (theorbo) and Andrew Skidmore (cello).

Giulio Cesare is a long opera. When English Touring Opera performed it uncut in 2017 they spread it over two evenings (a brave experiment, see my review). At the Grange it was performed cut (of course) with one interval, mid-way through Act Two.

Alden and Morrell’s approach to the work seems to have involved a lot of free association. Egypt, right? So Nireno (Owen Willetts) was a mummy, there were lots of Ancient Egyptian symbols, Tolomeo’s (Hugh Cutting) garden was full of oppressive plants and dangerous animals (including snakes). When, at the end of Act Two, Sarah Brady’s Cleopatra says she’s dying (a metaphorical turn of phrase), the jackal-headed god appeared to row her to the underworld, and elsewhere in the opera she had a fascination with asps! Costumes were similarly eclectic with different frames of reference. Curio (Owen Willetts) was a real Roman centurion, but Cesare (Tim Mead) seemed stuck in the mid-20th century, whilst Sesto (Zheng Jiang) was a schoolboy who when girding himself for action, dressed as an American footballer!

The whole approach felt a bit scattershot, and rather reminded me of the worst of 1980s and 1990s opera direction. Some scenes were (deliberately) funny such as the musical chairs during Tolomeo and Cesare’s first meeting. Other moments were found funny by the audience but I was unclear whether Alden intended this. The result was busy, with the stage nearly always full of colour and movement. The hardworking movement group were constantly used. Some decisions were clearly practical: the opening scenes of Act Three were played in front of the curtain because the set for Cesare’s emergence from the sea was complex. Yet, given the curtain, Alden could not resist a series of gags with singers crawling under it and failing to find the split in the curtains. Not for the first time, I felt that non-English directors should be given a crash course in English humorous references (curtain gags are pure Morecambe & Wise).

Handel: Giulio Cesare – Hugh Cutting, Sarah Brady – The Grange Festival (Photo: Richard Hubert Smith)

What made the evening work for me was the sheer quality of the musico-dramatic performances. Whatever was happening on stage, and whatever you thought of it, Alden and Curnyn drew profoundly satisfying accounts from each of the soloists.

Tim Mead sang Cesare with an enviably full and even tone, making each of the arias a profoundly satisfying experience. He could swagger as well as the next man, but he was also giddily in love and made this opera’s emphasis on Cesare the man work well. ‘Va tacito’ was superb (with terrific horn solo from Ursula Paludan Monberg), so much so that you rather regretted all the musical chairs shenanigans as detracting from this. Except that for all the chaos around him, Mead held our attention fully. Yet at the end of Act Two, when the attack comes, he was all vivid vigour and bravura. His reappearance in Act Three, on a pile of rubble, was touching and again Mead held our attention despite plenty of other goings on. All in all this was a most satisfying all round performance and I simply wanted more please. Can someone find a way for Tim Mead to sing the role complete!

Sarah Brady was announced as being unwell, but she sounded anything but. In her opening scene, she sparred admirably with the Tolomeo of Hugh Cutting. Here she cut an interestingly androgynous appearance but this was replaced by something more vamp-ish for ‘Lidia’. Alden’s approach to the character might be typified by Brady wearing a Louise Brooks type black bob wig. For the scenes with Tim Mead’s Cesare she was very much the sloe-eyed vamp. What made this work was the electricity between Mead and Brady, so that unusually Cesare and Cleopatra’s relationship fair crackled. ‘V’adoro pupille’ was in some ways disappointing. The nine solo instruments were simply in the pit (though the sounds were magical), and the visuals seemed to reference cabaret more than anything else. But Brady’s performance was terrific. But then, with the attack on Cesare, Brady deepened the character. ‘Per pieta’ and ‘Piangero’ were both, in their way, completely knock out with barely a gimmick on stage. And Brady developed Cleopatra’s character arc in a satisfying way so these were not just showpieces. Then at the end, after more sexy fun with Cesare, the pair dazzled.

Hugh Cutting was a delightfully slutty Tolomeo who, at times, seemed almost a villain out of a Batman film (particularly the green outfit which matched the plants in his garden). Cutting was clearly having great fun, but also managed to make the man creepy. And this was allied to a fine musical performance, demonstrating not only his technical skill with Handel but his confidence in building Handel’s musico-dramatic world.

Jess Dandy, in a somewhat dowdy 1950s-style outfit, cut a conventional figure at first. Yet though sober and serious, she was feisty too and for a moment in Act One I wondered whether Alden was going to go down a less conventional dramatic route. This did not happen, but Dandy brought great variety to what can be a somewhat sombre character arc. Her duet of farewell with Zheng Jiang’s Sesto was profoundly moving, yet as Act Two progressed, Dandy’s Cornelia seemed to dissociate and by the end of the opera she was on the bottle. That said, towards the end of the opera you felt that Alden had lost interest in the Cornelia/Sesto character arc and when Sesto killed Tolomeo in Act Three it was done simply in dumb show.

Zheng Jiang made an engaging Sesto, creating an earnest and eager schoolboy. Jiang’s tone was warm yet light, and definitely very fluent in the faster numbers. His approach to Sesto’s bravura passagework had a lightness of touch and fleetness to it that made the character less intense than a full, female mezzo-soprano voice. Yet towards the end, denied a real dénouement, Jiang was left to posture wearing his American football costume.

The smaller roles were all very well taken. James Atkinson’s performance as Achilla was such that we welcomed him getting both arias. Wearing uniform and full medals, this Achilla was visually over the top and Atkinson’s vicious performance matched the cartoonish behaviour of his master, Tolomeo. Yet there was nothing cartoonish about Atkinson’s singing and I hope he gets chance to sing some of Handel’s more rewarding baritone roles in oratorio.

Owen Willetts proved admirably musical as Nireno, though hampered by his mummy get-up. Tristan Hambleton provided fine support as Curio and swaggered admirably in his Roman centurion’s outfit.

In the pit, Christian Curnyn and the Early Opera Company gave a steady and secure account of the score, bringing out its richness without luxuriating. We benefitted from plenty of fine solo performances, not just the horn, but Catherine Martin’s on-stage violin solo in Cesare’s first solo in Act Two, and of course the various instruments for the muses in ‘V’adoro pupille’.

No-one, whether singer or instrumentalist, gave any hint that they were performing on one of the hottest evenings on record. Whilst I found Alden’s production somewhat too scattershot and with too much levity for my taste, the musical performances were all compelling.

Handel: Giulio Cesare – Sarah Brady, Tim Mead – The Grange Festival (Photo: Richard Hubert Smith)

At the end of the evening, Michael Chance (the company’s outgoing artistic director, to whom the production is dedicated) asked the audience if they would support the production returning in a few years time for a longer run. The answer was a resounding yes.

But my thought is that the company ought give a vote of confidence to its audience’s ability to appreciate Handelian opera seria. Present the opera starting an hour earlier, have two intervals and include 30 minutes more music, allowing us to see the characters in more depth. How about it?