In upstate New York, director R.B. Schlather sought to wrestle Handel’s opera into modernity; in Brooklyn, Anthony Roth Costanzo offered a performance considering the high male voice that included an olfactory component.

Randall Scotting in the title role of ‘Giulio Cesare.’ PHOTO: MATTHEW PLACEK

By Heidi Waleson

April 21, 2025 at 5:15 pm ET

Hudson, N.Y.

Director R.B. Schlather’s operas in Hudson Hall are billed as no-frills projects, with talent and materials locally sourced as much as possible. They are popular, judging from the jammed-in, SRO crowd at Handel’s “Giulio Cesare,” which opened on Saturday. Production values were minimalist. The set, designed by Mr. Schlather, was two enormous black walls, painted with glitter and placed at an open angle, plus a catwalk through the center of the audience. Masha Tsimring’s lighting was dark; shadows were a major design element.

Mr. Schlather is working hard to goose this opera into modernity, and he succeeds in part. His show’s theme is violence and tyranny; Cleopatra’s seduction of Cesare (though it is also a political move) is secondary to the arrogance and viciousness of Cleopatra’s brother, Tolomeo, and his determination to mow down every obstacle in his path to the throne of Egypt. Achilla, Tolomeo’s henchman, follows his master’s lead; hence his wooing of Cornelia, whose husband, Pompey, he murdered on Tolomeo’s orders, is staged as an attempted rape. Terese Wadden’s modern costumes are shredded and discarded as the show goes on, and by the end Cesare and Cleopatra are streaked with mud. A small pit in the front of the stage serves as a grave for the dead and almost dead. On the minus side, the interpretive dances of the striking performer Davon were more distracting than illuminating, and between the stygian darkness and minimal direction, some of the scenes lacked visual interest.

Matthew Deming and Song Hee Lee PHOTO: MATTHEW PLACEK

Musically, matters were more problematic. The 12 players of the period-instrument band Ruckus, while energetic, were not always in sync with the singers, and some of the arrangement choices were jarring. Cleopatra’s sorrowful “Piangerò,” eloquently sung by Song Hee Lee, had an intrusive electronic drone sound for its continuo bass line, and band director Clay Zeller-Townson’s bassoon was sometimes oddly prominent.

The singers, many of them talented, seemed unsupported in their challenging vocal parts. Ms. Lee gained in strength as the evening progressed; her two lamenting arias were impressive, as was her agility in the ornaments of the celebratory “Da tempeste.” Meridian Prall’s velvety mezzo gave her Cornelia tragic gravity, and Raha Mirzadegan’spure, piercing soprano made her especially boyish as Cornelia’s son, Sesto, despite her amateurish costume and wig. Their farewell duet was a high point.

The other principal singers were less assured. Countertenor Chuanyuan Liu was entertaining but missed Tolomeo’s vocal edge, and as Cesare countertenor Randall Scotting lacked vocal presence with his muted top range. In the smaller roles, Douglas Ray Williams was a coarse Achilla; Rolfe Dauz a robust Curio; and Matthew Deming played Nireno as Cleopatra’s gay best friend.

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Anthony Roth Costanzo PHOTO: JILL STEINBERG

Brooklyn, N.Y.

Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo doesn’t sit still. In addition to being a performer, producer, and the general director of Opera Philadelphia, he is now writing a book for a trade publisher about the history of countertenors and what it’s like to be one. Last week at National Sawdust, he offered a concert of the album that will accompany the book. Nothing about Mr. Costanzo is ever typical, so the 75-minute evening featured a 15-person instrumental ensemble and numbers ranging from a Monteverdi aria to a Frankie Valli hit to a Renaissance ditty with suggestive lyrics. It also had an olfactory component: Smells specially created by scientist and artist Sissel Tolaas were intermittently wafted into the space for a synesthetic experience.

It was an ambitious experiment, not quite jelled. Some of the pieces sounded under-rehearsed, and the amplification meant that every flaw and hesitation showed. But it also displayed Mr. Costanzo’s expressive range through an intriguing variety of genres, while his intelligence and unaffected charm made him an appealing narrator.

A frank tale of his first love affair led into an impassioned performance of Vivaldi’s “Sol da te mio dolce amore” with flutist Amir Farsimatching his virtuoso ornaments; discussion of the cultural ubiquity of the countertenor voice sent him him furiously rocking out in a Klaus Nomi number (“You Don’t Own Me”) and essaying authentic yodel-like vocal styling on a Hawaiian tune, “E Mama E.” (Dušan Balarin, the protean lute/theorbo/guitar player, was valiant on slide guitar for the latter.) He also reprised a bit of the all-Costanzo “Marriage of Figaro” that was staged last summer on Little Island, singing baritone and soprano in the Count/Susanna duet.

The most affecting number was “Laika,” written for him by Osvaldo Golijov, in which Leah Hager Cohen’s text adopts the voice of the Moscow street dog who was sent alone into space on the Russian Sputnik 2 in 1957, and died there. Mr. Costanzo brought her to life—by turns plaintive, frantic and resigned, his vocal leaps evoking the spinning of the capsule—floating over a mournful accompaniment featuring basset horn, bass clarinet and harp. In Baroque operas, the exotic castrati often portrayed nonhumans; so, Mr. Costanzo noted in his narration, a dog fits right in.

Dan Schlosberg supplied vivid arrangements in addition to conducting and playing keyboard; the brass and percussion players bloomed on the rock and pop numbers. Brandon Stirling Baker’s dramatic lighting, and the use of filament bulbs as design elements, heightened the concert experience. The smell component was very subtle. I got just an occasional hint of a rich, slightly vegetal aroma. It didn’t seem to heighten the experience at the time, but I do remember several of the numbers viscerally, so perhaps it worked.

Ms. Waleson writes on opera for the Journal and is the author of “Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America” (Metropolitan).