IF YOU GO
What: Florida Grand Opera presents Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Julius Caesar)When: 7 p.m. Saturday; 8 p.m. April 30, May 3, 6 and 9, and 2 p.m. May 11 at the Adrienne Arsht Center's Ziff Ballet Opera House, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami. Also, 8 p.m. May 15 and 17 at the Broward Center, 201 SW Fifth Ave., Fort LauderdaleTickets: $10-$250Info: 800-741-1010 or www.fgo.org.When one thinks of Miami's most daring, cutting-edge musical institutions, Florida Grand Opera is not the first name that leaps to mind. Yet eight years ago, the company mounted a wildly theatrical, highly acclaimed staging of Handel's Julius Caesar with a remarkable cast, including countertenor David Daniels singing the title role just before his breakout career success.
Florida Grand is reviving the opera's 2000 staging, which The Miami Herald's late critic James Roos called ''arguably the most stunning production in the company's near six-decade history,'' when Julius Caesar opens Saturday night at the Adrienne Arsht Center. The production closes the company's season.
While Daniels will not take part, FGO has fielded an impressive cast for this revival, including John Gaston, another fast-rising countertenor, as Caesar, the superb Brian Asawa as Tolomeo and local favorite Leah Partridge as Cleopatra.
Yet, perhaps most significantly, it has also booked Gary Thor Wedow as conductor. While Wedow is not a familiar presence here, anyone who caught recent Handel performances in Seattle or at New York City Opera will have encountered his stylish, energetic and keenly intelligent musicianship. Scrupulously researched and historically informed, Wedow's performances also possess a wonderful freshness and direct communicative quality, with tempos quick yet buoyant and arias freely expressive.
Unlike many Baroque specialists, Wedow wears his erudition lightly, and there's nothing dictatorial about his style. At an early piano rehearsal with the cast at the Ziff Ballet Opera House, he politely corrects details of pronunciation and rhythm, complimenting frequently and often asking singers for ideas.
''I love working with Gary,'' says Asawa, who had also sung the villain role of Cleopatra's evil brother in Seattle under Wedow. ``He's a wonderful music maker.''
Also appreciated by Asawa is the conductor's low-key, collegial style. 'He keeps the recits going and alive and is always helpful with ornamentation that suits the singers' voices,'' Asawa says. ``And he treats his singers with respect and kindness.''
''The music is made to astonish and enliven,'' says Wedow, settling into his chair at a restaurant during a dinner break. ``A Baroque composer felt that if he wrote the right chords and the right melodic line, he would tap into the music of the spheres, which then would somehow broadcast to you.''
Julius Caesar -- Giulio Cesare in Egitto in its full Italian title -- enjoyed huge success from its 1724 premiere, running for an initial 13 performances, 10 the following year and 11 more in 1730. Handel's confidence and exuberance are clear in the score's fizzing vitality as well as in its innovation, as with the horn obbligato to Caesar's Va tacito e nascosto. There's also a striking richness of expression from the opera's war-like anger arias to Cleopatra's heartbreaking Piangero la sorte mia.
''It's like a variety show,'' Wedow says. ``Every singer sings arias in different moods. You get to hear Cleopatra in love. You hear Cleopatra heartbroken. You hear Cleopatra victorious. It's filled with this breathtaking variety.''
SINGER-ACTORS
He also finds it significant that some of Handel's favorite singers, such as the celebrated castrato Senesino who created the role of Caesar, were also acclaimed dramatic actors.
There was an incredibly theatrical revolution going on,'' Wedow says. e``You had wonderful actors singing these operas, and we know that Handel was influenced by the theatrical modes of the day. So it's great that now we have these operas handled by a new generation of singers who are wonderful actors, look like the characters and can sing this virtuosic music.''
The difficulty in staging Cesare today -- in addition to finding singers who can tackle Handel's frequent flights of dizzying coloratura -- is deciding how much of Handel's fecund score to perform. The composer wrote several arias for each of the eight characters, an embarrassment of vocal riches.
Though Wedow is a dedicated advocate of historically informed performances, he is philosophical about editing long Handel operas to make them more palatable for today's audiences with short attention spans.
''The whole opera would be four and a half hours,'' Wedow says. While any cut is ''very painful,'' the Miami performances will take significant trims.
''Handel was a man of the theater,'' Wedow says. ``Every time Handel revived an opera he constantly changed things. Look at all the different versions of Messiah. If the tenor wasn't any good, he'd change Thou shalt break them into recitative.''
Handel's equally bravura writing for orchestra also makes Cesare great fun for the pit musicians as well as the audience.
''It's very exciting for an orchestra to play,'' Wedow says. ``It's kind of like jazz. The violins never stop, and the continuo plays throughout. I love it. It should have this spontaneous feel even though it's planned and rehearsed. The singers should feel free enough and confident enough to go with the moment.''
MUSICAL FAMILY
Born in La Porte, Ind., Wedow was raised in a family of amateur musicians. His mother was a pianist; his father played clarinet. ``I grew up with stacks of dance and big-band music, and we'd all sit around the piano, sing and play. I guess it's in my blood.''
Believing he was destined to be a concert pianist, Wedow enrolled at Indiana University in Bloomington where the great Cuban-American pianist Jorge Bolet would have the most decisive influence on his future opera career.
The conductor recalls Bolet as a formidable presence artistically and physically. ``I was a little kid from the cornfields, and Bolet was like six foot four. He terrified me. He looked like a linebacker.''
One night, Wedow played the piano accompaniment for a singer friend at a school recital. The first selections were arias from Handel's Cesare. Wedow thought he had done well, but after the concert he heard Bolet's heavy footsteps coming down the hall to the dressing room. ''The door flew open, and there was Jorge,'' Wedow recalls. 'And he literally picked me up, and my feet left the ground. And he shook me and said, `Why can't you play the piano like that when you play for me?!' And I realized that I loved vocal music and singers from that moment on.''
From his early career, Handel has played a prominent role in Wedow's success. He has led lauded performances of Xerxes, Rinaldo, Alcina and Ariodante as well as Sartorio's Giulio Cesare in Egitto on which Handel based his version. While Wedow does not mind being regarded as a Baroque specialist, he quickly points out that he has conducted more than 40 performances of Carmen at New York City Opera. Indeed, Wedow's repertoire has roamed widely from La bohème to La nozze di Figaro and Elisir d'Amore and Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience to contemporary works by Tan Dun, Hans Werner Henze, Jake Heggie and Tobias Picker.
WELCOME GUEST
A longtime associate conductor of Boston's Handel & Haydn Society, Wedow now enjoys being a podium freelancer and guest batonsmith, though he doesn't rule out the possibility of a permanent post should the right opportunity arise. ''I'm happy doing what I'm doing now, but I'm ready for anything.'' Wedow and his partner live with their Welsh terrier in ``the sunny part of Queens.''
The conductor stresses that wary operagoers who think of Baroque opera as a long evening filled with archaic pageantry and interminable da capo arias will be delighted by this production, which reflects Handel's view of opera as entertainment.
''The wonderful thing about Handel, is if you don't like the scene you're in, just stick around because what's coming up is completely different,'' Wedow says. ``I think the important thing for audiences to remember is you're coming to a show.''
