A "rocket start" for Bartoli as Salzburg festival director

The other day the excellent French-German television channel ARTE broadcast
Georg Friedrich Händel´s opera Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Julius Caesar in Egypt) recorded at this year´s Salzburg Whitsun Festival.

This was also the first production with Cecilia Bartoli as Artistic Director of the festival.

In addition to Bartoli herself (Cleopatra), the cast consisted of several other famous names, like e.g. Anne Sofie von Otter (Cornelia) and Andreas Scholl (Giulio Cesare).

Händel wrote many beautiful arias for this opera. It was a pleasure to LISTEN to the outstanding soloists. If you look at the photos below, you may understand why I preferred not to watch:

A "rocket start" for Bartoli as Artistic Director of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival

This performance would certainly have made Handel and his librettist Nicola Francesco  Haym turn over  in their graves.