Handel - Opera: "Julius Caesar" ("Va tacito") Dame Janet Baker. HD

AI-enhanced to HD.
Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Julius Caesar in Egypt, HWV 17), commonly known simply as Giulio Cesare, is an Italian opera in three acts written for the Royal Academy of Music by George Frideric Handel in 1724.
This is an English version, staged (sumptiously) for TV in 1985 by the English National Opera under Sir Charles Mackerras. In this clip, the marvellous, beautiful Dame Janet Baker (Mezzo Soprano - as Caesar) sings the Aria "How silently..." - in Italian "Va tacito e nascosto". It has always been one of my favourite Handel Arias, and Dame Janet sings, as well as acts this part most memorably, alongside an extensive solo natural horn obbligato - the predecessor to the modern-day (French) horn.

[@mecano1us]

Odd some of the responses below. People seem averse to learning anything, and churlish on their responses... At any rate, thank you for breathing new life to a well loved classic.

[@AntPDC]

That's UA-cam for you!

[@TheNinjaMarmot]

She sings like how I pad my essays to fill the page requirement.

[@AntPDC]

You don't like her singing?

[@TheNinjaMarmot]

@@AntPDC Her singing's great. Only that she stretches it out quite a bit. But I'm not much of an opera fan. So that's probably something to be praised as she can carry it a bit.

[@AntPDC]

@@TheNinjaMarmot It's the idiom of 18th century Baroque music. The music of the earlier Renaissance stretches rather more, and before that all bets are off!

[@HuPAC2003]

For some reason, the melody here reminds me of parts of the 1981 'Brideshead Revisited' soundtrack by Geoffrey Burgon.

[@TheNinjaMarmot]

So is she playing Caesar or Cleo?

[@AntPDC]

Please read the Description.

[@TheNinjaMarmot]

@@AntPDC Thanks. Odd role reversal.

[@AntPDC]

@@TheNinjaMarmot Yes, that's understandable by today's standards. In the Baroque period however, a horrific practice created castrati singers-male singers who underwent castration before puberty to retain a singing voice equivalent to that of a female soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto. Although, by contemporary accounts, the castrati had incredibly unique and athletic voices, the practice was rightfully banned. This led to a surplus of roles written for the voice type that needed to be filled. As opera at that time was primarily focused on vocal quality, female mezzo-sopranos and contraltos fit the bill.
These roles were often those of strong, heroic men of high status. No one really questioned the gender bending, though. Audiences understood that women were simply filling a vocal void.
Here, Dame Janet Baker plays the role of Julius Caesar, who was well-aware of Ptolemy's (Cleopatra's brother) murderous intentions towards him. The pharaohs of Egypt (of ancient Greek extraction, by the way) considered themselves far higher socially than the Romans, whom they regarded as low-class and brutish.

[@TheNinjaMarmot]

@@AntPDC I see. Thank you for the history lesson. I thought in classical plays men played all the roles and women weren't allowed to. So it seemed odd to me.
Even though men are able to sing soprano in this day and age - I don't know in this play whether they can do it better than women. I suppose if they were following the tradition in Baroque period as you described it would make sense for women to play that role.
Thank you

[@AntPDC]

@@TheNinjaMarmot My pleasure. You might be interested in the previous Scene of this Opera, where Ptolemy plots against Caesar. Ptolemy is played by the late James Bowman, a male countertenor: ua-cam.com/video/JQd-A35nU2o/v-deo.html