Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Julius Caesar in Egypt), often shortened to Giulio Cesare, is a 1725 opera by George Frederic Handel, considered to be one of his best works and one of the best-known Baroque operas overall nowadays. The libretto by Nicola Haym is a rewrite of an earlier libretto by Giacomo Francesco Bussani (adapted to music by Antonio Sartorio; it's believed Händel used some of his music too when writing his version) and is extremely loosely based on the relationship of Cleopatra VII and Julius Caesar, and the civil conflict in Egypt in which they were involved.
Julius Caesar arrives in Egypt and decides to make peace with Pompey, only for Ptolemy’s henchman Achillas to arrive with Pompey’s head. Caesar is disgusted and promises to make the pharaoh pay. Pompey’s widow and son, Cornelia and Sextus, swear vengeance as well.
Meanwhile, Ptolemy’s sister Cleopatra believes the throne should be hers since she’s the eldest, so she decides to get Caesar to help her with her rebellion. Disguised as a lady-in-waiting names Lidia, she arrives at his camp and says she is a highborn woman and Ptolemy has stolen what’s her birthright. Caesar is immediately smitten and promises to help her. After a while, Cleopatra realizes she has fallen in love with him as well.
Cornelia and Sextus, attempting to get their revenge, are captured by Ptolemy instead, and Cornelia finds both Ptolemy and Achillas vying for her favors. But Ptolemy makes the mistake of promising Cornelia’s hand to his general and then going back on his word in the most humiliating manner possible, so Achillas switches to Cleopatra’s side. When Caesar and Cleopatra’s army is defeated, the mortally wounded Achillas gives Sextus the ring with the commander’s sigil and tells him where the relief troops are hiding. Caesar, whom everyone thought dead, emerges alive and well, and the tide of the battle turns. Sextus is finally able to kill Ptolemy, and Caesar crowns Cleopatra as Queen of Egypt.
The opera and its productions contain examples of:
- Adaptation Distillation: Sartorio's opera is way longer, has a way more convoluted plot and its characters are constantly falling in love with/declaring hate for/getting disguised as each other. Haym's removal of many of Bussani's details brings focus to the two main plotlines (Caesar and Cleopatra, Cornelia and Sextus), both dramatically and musically.
- Adapted Out:
- Cleopatra’s nurse Rodisbe from Sartorio’s opera is absent in Handel’s version.
- In Sartorio’s opera, Ptolemy falls in Love Before First Sight after simply hearing a generic description of Cornelia’s beauty and instantly decides to steal her from Achillas. In Handel’s version, the whole storyline is made slightly more believable as Ptolemy starts lusting after Cornelia when he sees her.
- The storyline from Sartorio’s opera about Cornelia and Sextus switching clothes is cut completely.
- Anachronism Stew: Done in the ENO production to imitate the style of Händel's lifetime. Back then, whatever the setting of the plot, men wore armor that had a vaguely Roman look and women wore contemporary dresses.
- Aroused by Their Voice: Cleopatra sings a song to Caesar to ensure her seduction works, and it does – he is completely entranced by her voice as much as by her looks.
- Artistic License – History: A norm for opera, especially in the Baroque period.
- The fact that Cleopatra and her brother were married (as in, to each other) is never referenced, and neither is Caesar’s own marriage.
- At the time of the plot, the Real Life Sextus Pompey was busy rebelling against Caesar, not making friends with him as he does in the opera. He also, most probably, had nothing to do with the death of Ptolemy.
- Achillas dies earlier than his historical counterpart, and in an entirely different way.
- As You Know: For the audience's benefit, Caesar and Curius decide to remind each other who Cornelia is in the beginning of the first act.
- Bald of Evil: Ptolemy often has one. In the ENO opera film, he is also surrounded by identical bald minions.
- Beautiful Dreamer: Invoked by Cleopatra, when she pretends to be asleep so that Caesar would openly confess his feelings for her. It works.
- Becoming the Mask: Cleopatra initially seduces Caesar to make him her ally, but ends up really falling in love with him.
- Big Damn Heroes: Sextus bursts in dramatically to save Cornelia, twice – first to stop her from killing herself, then to rescue her from Ptolemy.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: Even after he’s finished with his Evil Gloating and with no intentions to spare Cleopatra, Ptolemy, for no reason, keeps her alive long enough for Caesar to find and rescue her.
- BSoD Song:
- Cleopatra’s Piangeró la sorte mia is the most famous one. She sings it when she is captured by Ptolemy with no hope of escaping and believes Caesar to be killed.
- Caesar’s Aure, dei, per pietá – when Caesar has barely survived leaping into the sea, his troops are scattered, and he doesn’t know what has happened to Cleopatra.
- Comforting the Widow: Curius tries it with Cornelia mere minutes after Pompey’s head is brought in. Achillas and Ptolemy aren’t too far behind him.
- Condescending Compassion: Cleopatra towards Ptolemy when she tells him that it’s not a big deal he can’t inherit the throne, after all, he still has his harem!
- Creepy Crossdresser: In his first appearance in David McVicar’s production, Ptolemy is dressed exactly like Cleopatra, who is onstage at the moment as well and whom he proceeds to grope.
- Creepy High-Pitched Voice: Ptolemy is usually sung by a countertenor (the part was originally written for alto castrato).
- Crosscast Role: The majority of the parts were written for castrato voices, and now every role except Achillas and Curius (both of them basses) can be sung by women. Sometimes, Sextus and Nirenus can even get their gender changed to make the casting and costuming easier – since them being female makes zero difference to the plot.
- Darker and Edgier: A downplayed example with the ENO opera film starring Janet Baker and Valerie Masterson, which is made in a more serious tone than most productions.
- Death by Adaptation: In Sartorio's opera, Ptolemy is put in chains but not killed.
- Deathbed Confession: Before dying, Achillas tells Sextus and Nirenus that he murdered Pompey and started the coup against Caesar. The audience knows the latter, and the former is more or less easy to figure out, but Sextus, Nirenus and Caesar (who’s listening at a distance) are shocked and disgusted.
- Demoted to Extra: Curius was a much more prominent character in Sartorio's opera; in particular, he had several arias. In Händel's, he has a handful of recitatives, and even these are often cut.
- Dishonored Dead:
- Pompey’s severed head is brought to Caesar as a welcoming gift. Caesar is mortified.
- After Achillas dies, Sextus commands to throw "the worthless corpse" into the sea. Averted in the ENO production, where that line is cut, along with the insults Caesar, Sextus and Nirenus shout at Achillas during the latter's deathbed confession.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Curius, perhaps the only unambiguously nice guy in the whole story, gets repeatedly rejected by Cornelia. In Sartorio/Bussani's earlier version, she does accept him in the end, but Händel/Haym‘s version lacks that part.
- Dude Magnet: Surprisingly for an opera about Cleopatra, it’s not her but Cornelia, who has three suitors.
- "Everyone Comes Back" Fantasy Party Ending: The entire cast, including the dead Ptolemy and Achillas, gathers for the final celebratory chorus.
- Faux Affably Evil: Ptolemy can maintain a polite and courteous facade, if not for very long.
- Flowery Insults: Caesar sings a six-minute aria where he subtly compares Ptolemy to a hunter setting a snare.
- Good Stepmother: Cornelia for Sextus – in the stagings that stick to the fact that Sextus was Pompey’s son by one of his previous wives. It’s either that or they are Related in the Adaptation and made mother and son.
- Grief Song: Cornelia’s Priva son d’ogni conforto, after she sees her husband’s head brought to Caesar.
- "The Hero Sucks" Song: Ptolemy’s L’empio, sleale, indegno, where he explains in detail what he thinks of Caesar.
- Historical Relationship Overhaul:
- Achillas and Ptolemy are in love with Pompey the Great's widow Cornelia, while there is no historical evidence for that.
- Sextus Pompey becomes a staunch supporter of Caesar after the latter agrees to a peace. In Real Life, he remained Caesar's enemy (and later his chosen successor Octavian's enemy) for the rest of his life.
- Im Dying Please Take My Macguffin: Achillas to Nirenus and Sextus (it’s ambiguous whether he recognizes either of them at any point) when he gives them the ring.
- King Incognito: Cleopatra gets disguised as a servant and calls herself Lidia.
- Love at First Sight: Again, pretty common in baroque opera.
- Achillas for Cornelia. He watches her from afar for several minutes (while she is devastated after her husband’s murder and isn’t even trying to attract anyone), and falls madly in love.
- Caesar for Cleopatra. Here, at least, it is invoked by Cleopatra who poses as a delicate but subtly seductive Damsel in Distress.
- Love Dodecahedron: Hardly a surprise in baroque opera, it includes almost everyone. So: Caesar and Cleopatra fall in love with each other, Cornelia was Happily Married to Pompey, is loved by Curius and pursued by Achillas and Ptolemy. Curius also nearly makes a move at Cleopatra (in her Lidia disguise), and some adaptations include the real life-based Incest Subtext between Cleopatra and Ptolemy.
- Love Redeems: Achillas’s love for Cornelia is what triggers his Heel–Face Turn.
- Lyrical Dissonance: Two of Achillas’s arias sound like war songs and are actually (from his point of view, at least) sweet confessions of love.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: As Achillas puts it, "who doesn’t have honor deserves no loyalty".
- The Mole: Nirenus is Cleopatra’s man in the palace and quietly sabotages Ptolemy’s plots (for example, freeing Sextus).
- Mood Whiplash:
- Caesar speaks kindly to Cornelia and Sextus and promises to make peace with Pompey – right as Achilles shows up with Pompey’s severed head.
- Caesar confesses his love to the apparently sleeping Cleopatra and promises to marry her. She squees, he has a Did I Just Say That Out Loud? moment of shock, and it is a very funny and tender scene… until Curius bursts in, crying that Caesar is betrayed.
- Parents in Distress: Sextus has to save his mother (or Parental Substitute stepmother, if the adaptation sticks to the historical fact) from Ptolemy.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: Cornelia’s first reason for rejecting Achillas is not that he is Ptolemy’s cruel henchman, or that he tries to threaten her into acceptance, or that he brought her husband’s head to Caesar, or anything of that sort, but:"I, a Roman, wife to a vile Egyptian?!"
- Promoted to Love Interest: Inverted with Curius. In Sartorio’s opera, Cornelia finally agrees to marry him in the finale, but Haym’s libretto omits that scene.
- Reason Before Honor: As Ptolemy steadily refuses fighting honorably, Sextus ends up killing him when he’s defenseless in his harem.
- Redemption Equals Death: Achillas is killed trying to overthrow Ptolemy (or, in some productions, by Ptolemy himself before he even gets a chance to try).
- Replacement Goldfish: Curius considers trying his luck with "Lidia" since Cornelia has rejected him again.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Caesar, whom everyone believed to be dead, appears alive and well in the final act.
- Revenge Before Reason: Cornelia and Sextus just walk into the palace and try to attack Ptolemy with absolutely no backup except for Non-Action Guy Nirenus. Needless to say, it doesn’t end well for them.
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: A villainous example with the boyish-voiced Ptolemy, who loves to rhapsodize about the beauty of his concubines (or potential concubines) and about how he’ll torture and kill his enemies, and the baritone Achillas whose arias have much less elaborate lyrics and who prefers brutal force over poisonous cunning.
- Setting Update: Done more often than not in modern productions, with, for example, the 2005 David McVicar production moving the plot from the Ptolemaic Egypt of the 1st century BCE to the British Occupied Egypt of the 19th century CE, while a 2013 production in Salzburg opts for modern Egypt.
- Sibling Rivalry: Cleopatra and Ptolemy’s war for the throne of Egypt.
- Song of Prayer:
- In "Svegliatevi nel core", Sextus calls to the Furies to never let him rest until he avenges his father's murder.
- "Venere bella" is Cleopatra's prayer to Venus, begging to give her all the charms necessary to enchant Caesar.
- In "Aure, dei, per pieta", Caesar, having just been cast ashore after almost drowning, prays to the Auras (Aura was the goddess of light breeze in Ancient Greek beliefs, but here she's in the plural due to Artistic License – Religion). He begs them to help him in his peril and to tell him if his beloved Cleopatra is safe.
- Spared By Adaptation: In the 2019 Bloomington staging, Achillas survives his wounds.
- Universally Beloved Leader: Caesar is universally beloved in Egypt (Ptolemy and initially Achillas being the only known exceptions), so that everyone squees at the news that Egypt will now be subject to Rome.
- Villain Love Song:
- Achillas has two – Tu sei il cor di questo core (You are the heart of this heart) and the frequently cut Se a me non sei crudele (If you aren’t cruel to me). Many productions have him sing them with genuine tenderness, but the fact that he organized the murder of Cornelia’s husband and imprisoned her son does not help his cause.
- Ptolemy has Belle dée (Beautiful goddesses), addressed to his entire harem.
- "The Villain Sucks" Song: Caesar’s Empio, diró, tu sei – the first verse is directed at Achillas, the second at Ptolemy (though in some productions, like the ENO’s version with Janet Baker, it’s entirely about Ptolemy).
- Warrior Poet: Caesar is a great conqueror and has all of the most poetic and philosophical arias in the opera.
- Worthy Opponent: Caesar highly admires Pompey’s leadership skills and courage and is ready to reconcile with him.
