Coauthors in the Drama: Directing Handel

Robin Guarino: Director, Giulio Cesare

When staging Handel, the director and conductor really get to be coauthors in the drama. Handel’s operas move from one aria to the next with few or no ensemble numbers. Because of this there are few restrictions regarding who must be on or offstage at any given time. This allows me to explore both overt and subtextual ideas with staging. How to tell this story clearly and interestingly is my principal concern and I’m fortunate to have a great collaborator in David Stern [Conductor, Giulio Cesare].

One of the wonderful things about working with David is that he puts a real emphasis on text. Text, of course, is my best friend. Our conversations about this production began not only with the musical structure of the piece, but also with the words of the characters. We started each staging rehearsal by having the singers sit in a circle to go through the libretto word-for-word, like a play. With that accomplished, we reduced the scenes to the 21st-century “street” version, distilling them down to primary emotions. This really put the drama into the hands of the singers because they were forced to bring it into a modern-day psychology. Once you get the piece up on its feet it results in a much more explosive kind of story telling. Moving into the theater for tech rehearsals and working on John’s incredible set allowed us to explore the story on an even deeper level.

Placing Giulio Cesare in a space that evokes the Globe Theatre allows for a beautiful fluidity and spontaneity to occur. We can move from one scene to the next quickly — the way that Shakespeare did — because there aren’t a lot of cumbersome set pieces to move. Entrances and exits of singers can be instantaneous. It also allows a rapid shift between a specificity of location — we’re in a tent, we’re in Cleopartra’s chambers, etc. — and a close-up into the mind’s eye of one of the characters. We can move from the physical world to a more psychological space in the blink of an eye. The sparseness of the set also puts a heightened focus on the text, allowing the words these characters sing to drive the work.

photo:
1. A staging rehearsal for Giulio Cesare. photo credit: John Glover