Handel composes Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Julius…
1724 CE
Handel composes Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Julius Caesar in Egypt, HWV 17), commonly known simply as Giulio Cesare, an Italian opera in three acts written for the Royal Academy of Music in 1724.
The libretto is written by Nicola Francesco Haym who has used an earlier libretto by Giacomo Francesco Bussani, which had been set to music by Antonio Sartorio (1676).
First performed in London on February 20, 1724, the opera is an immediate success.
The work is considered by many to be Handel's finest Italian opera, possibly even the best in the history of opera seria.
It is admired for its superb vocal writing, its dramatic impact, and its deft orchestral arrangements.
Tamerlano, one of Handel's major works, is composed it in the space of twenty days in July 1724, in a year in which two more great operas are composed by him: Giulio Cesare and Rodelinda.
Eve Meyer has noted how the role of Bajazet was one of the first major tenor roles in opera, as well as the place of the opera in the contemporary fashion for Turkish culture (turquerie). (Meyer, Eve R., "Turquerie and Eighteenth-Century Music" (Summer 1974). Eighteenth-Century Studies, 7(4), pp. 474-488.)
It is first performed at the King's Theatre, London, on October 31, 1724, around the time of the annual performance of Nicholas Rowe's Tamerlane plays (November) 4–5 .
There are twelve performances and it was repeated on November 13, 1731.
The opera then receives a production in Hamburg with the recitative in German and the arias in Italian.