The Pleasures of Artifice

Over the past dozen years, the Deutsche Oper Berlin has offered an admirable mixture of heavy hitters, popular favourites, world premières, unjustly-neglected rarities, and even the occasional foray into grand opéra. Conspicuously absent from that list is anything from the era before Mozart. Baroque opera, for all its variety and interest, is still perhaps seen as something of a risk for any modern company: not only does it require specialist musicians – both on stage and in the pit – but it also demands an audience willing to readjust themselves to a pace of drama dictated by the da capo aria.

For their first new venture into baroque opera in over a decade, the Deutsche Oper nonetheless added yet another success to what has already been an extraordinary season. Admittedly Händel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto is, both musically and…