Early in the game at Opera Santa Barbara’s (OSB) impressive take on Handel’s Caesar & Cleopatra, Cornelia (mezzo-soprano Christina Pezzarossi) mournfully pines over her dead, newly slain husband Pompey, cradling his severed head and staring into his dead eyes as she passionately sings. It should be startling to us, or at least the stuff of surreal dramaturgy. Welcome to the cauldron of contradictions that is opera, where hyperbole and irrationality often reign, but with its excesses ideally mollified by the power of radiant music.
And so it goes with Handel’s Caesar & Cleopatra, one of the most popular entries in the still underrated and under-performed special realm of Baroque opera. OSB is to be commended for once again going baroque, and in high style. The opera world, despite its wealth of programming options, tends to tap into a familiar menu of choices, often Italian fare from the past two centuries.
This company has given us its share of old favorites, as it will again in the 2026-27 season announced before the Handel production at the Lobero, with Rigoletto, Barber of Seville, and, from a more marginal place, the American “western” opera Riders of the Purple Sage.
But company head Kostis Protopapas found himself overcoming his own skeptical appreciation of baroque opera, leading to a memorable production of Handel’s Semele in 2022, and now this well-tooled Caesar, a bonus for the company’s legacy.
All the pieces were in place for a savory encounter with two-and-a-half hours of Handel’s masterpiece, an abridged version of the three-act Julius Caesar. The tale of love between the titular Caesar and Cleopatra, in Egypt, interweaves into a tangled political and romantic story involving power plays, murder plots, and family versus foul play.
Emily Senturia led the ensemble in the pit through a crisp and propulsive performance, and keyboardist Kyle Naig handled the harpsichord parts in the traditional baroque form of recitatives (recitativo secco) accompanying singers. Stage director and set designer Josh Shaw put together a compact but resourceful setting packed onto the relatively small Lobero stage, in period-sympathetic collusion with costume designer Stacie Logue.
Soprano Anastasia Malliaras made a striking impact in her OSB debut as Cleopatra, blending pathos and queenly cunning in thespian and vocal terms, and tenor Colin Ramsey impressed with his Caesar as a blonde Adonis-esque figure, seizing attention from his opera-opening appearance on the aria “Presti omai l’Egizia terra.” Vocal powers were also in good stead with Kelly Guerra as Sesto and Logan Tanner, in resident villain mode, as Tolomeo, co-ruler of Egypt with his sister Cleopatra.
Opera Santa Barbara’s ‘Caesar & Cleopatra’ | Photo: Courtesy 
Opera Santa Barbara’s ‘Caesar & Cleopatra’ | Photo: Courtesy 
Opera Santa Barbara’s ‘Caesar & Cleopatra’ | Photo: Courtesy 
Opera Santa Barbara’s ‘Caesar & Cleopatra’ | Photo: Courtesy 
Opera Santa Barbara’s ‘Caesar & Cleopatra’ | Photo: Courtesy
Musical highs include Ramsey’s rendering of “Va tacito e nascosto,” Malliaras’s sharply tooled passion on the arias “Da tempeste il legno infranto,” and “Piangerò la sorte mia.”
In this opera’s truncated tale, undercurrents of angst, vengeance, and general ugliness come to a fairly quick resolution as the opera steers its way into the mantra-like ensemble chant before the curtain falls: “Let beauty and pleasure return to our hearts.” Hear hear.
If one’s attentions were strained by the overstated dramatic circumstances in a tale involving the usual operatic cocktail of love, vengeance, far-fetched subplots — not to mention a ballad to a severed head — the abundance of luminous and orderly music was enough to keep us attuned.
Chalk another winning outing for OSB, and further polished enticement from its baroque opera sidebar. More, please. Italy can wait.
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