Lilit Davtyan in "Giulio Cesare" at Teatro Petruzzelli: a Baroque Masterpiece Returns in Bari
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The 2025 opera season at Teatro Petruzzelli reopened with a masterpiece of Baroque opera: Georg Friedrich Handel's "Giulio Cesare." Last night's performance, on September 24th, once again confirmed the greatness of this work that has continued to captivate audiences and performers for three centuries.
The opera's complete title is "Giulio Cesare in Egitto" (Julius Caesar in Egypt), composed in 1724 with a libretto by Nicola Francesco Haym, and represents one of Handel's artistic peaks. The plot, inspired by the events of the Alexandrian War, unfolds through the encounter between the Roman general and Egyptian Queen Cleopatra, against the backdrop of power struggles. The opera skillfully weaves together historical and sentimental elements, offering singers arias of extraordinary beauty and technical complexity.
Damiano Michieletto's direction managed to give the production a modern interpretation without betraying the spirit of the opera. Paolo Fantin's sets created an essential yet evocative stage space, while Agostino Cavalca's costumes balanced historical references with contemporary elements. Alessandro Carletti's lighting design contributed to creating suggestive atmospheres, emphasizing the most dramatic moments of the story. Thomas Wilhelm's choreography added a further element of visual refinement.
Under the expert baton of Stefano Montanari, the Teatro Petruzzelli Orchestra delivered a high-level performance, demonstrating mastery of the Baroque style. The tempos were consistently appropriate, allowing the singers to express themselves at their best in the complex Handelian arias.
The evening featured internationally renowned performers. Nicholas Tamagna interpreted the title role with authority, demonstrating vocal confidence and stage presence. Giuseppina Bridelli, in the role of Sesto Pompeo, confirmed her qualities as a dramatic mezzo-soprano, while Sara Mingardo equally enriched the role of Cornelia with a voice of unmistakable timbre.
But it was undoubtedly the twenty-six-year-old Armenian singer Lilit Davtyan who was the true protagonist of the evening. The soprano, who currently lives and works primarily in Berlin and alternates in the role of Cleopatra with Sandrine Piau throughout the run, offered an interpretation of rare beauty and artistic completeness. Her voice, characterized by a luminous timbre and impeccable technique, proved ideal for Handelian arias.
Davtyan captured all the facets of the Egyptian queen drawn by the master from Halle: from the seductive and sensual figure of the first part to the passionate lover, to the sovereign who fights with determination for her kingdom. The most virtuosic arias, such as the celebrated "V'adoro pupille," "Se pietà di me non senti," and "Piangerò la sorte mia," were executed with disarming technical ease, while in the most intimate moments the singer demonstrated remarkable expressive maturity.
The production, created in co-production with prestigious European theaters (Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Oper Leipzig, Opéra Orchestre National de Montpellier Occitanie, Capitole de Toulouse), confirms Teatro Petruzzelli's international vocation and its ability to present performances of the highest level.
The evening's success, crowned by lengthy applause for all the protagonists, supplemented by applause during the performance for the most complex arias and duets, demonstrates how the Baroque repertoire, when interpreted with stylistic competence and artistic passion, retains its full capacity to move contemporary audiences. The audience in Bari fully grasped the extraordinary psychological complexity of the opera, recognizing the profoundly Baroque sensibility of the theatrical writing. From the white box of the first part, the spectator was led as in an authentic collective ritual through the darkest recesses of human consciousness. The black box of the second part, instead, oriented sight and hearing toward a more intimate introspection. Intrepid ourselves in our seats, we awaited each moment for Julius Caesar's victory and the tyrant's fall, while simultaneously foreseeing his own inevitable transformation into a new despot. In this scenic dialectic between light and shadow, between open space and claustrophobic dimension, the opera unfolded its reflection on power as eternal return, revealing the ineluctable circularity of history and the tragic irony of human destiny.
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