Giulio Cesare, Opéra Garnier, Paris: 20 January-16 February 2024

A love story between two illustrious figures of antiquity - Caesar and Cleopatra - coupled with power struggles in Egypt: these ingredients alone could explain the immediate success of Giulio Cesare when it premiered in 1724 at the Haymarket Theatre in London.

But if it became Handel's most popular opera, it was above all thanks to its sumptuous orchestration and prodigious musical inventiveness. Each character is portrayed with great psychological finesse, especially Cleopatra, one of the history of music's finest female portraits. Director Laurent Pelly sets the action in the reserves of a museum, in the department of Egyptian antiquities, resulting in delightful era-shifts between characters in togas and busy maintenance workers. A playful way of breaking the codes of the opera seria, which was precisely Handel's objective.