The die is cast once Pompey’s corpse sprawls headless in the sand and Julius Caesar straddles the earth like a colossus, the unrivalled ruler of the Roman world. Will he really risk losing all for love of Cleopatra, the seductive Egyptian queen?

The triumphant climax of the composer’s Royal Academy years, and arguably the grandest, most sumptuously tuneful opera seria of them all, Handel’s Julius Caesar returns to ENO’s repertoire for the first time since its legendary 1979 staging first established the company’s reputation as London’s reigning ‘House of Handel’.

Featuring Lawrence Zazzo, ‘the king of countertenors’ (Financial Times), as Caesar and Anna Christy – 2010’s ‘mesmerising’ (The Times) Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor – as Cleopatra, this new production is conducted by Baroque expert Christian Curnyn, whose previous ENO credits include 2011’s Castor and Pollux. Directing is the innovative Michael Keegan-Dolan, who returns to ENO with his own Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre following their sensational 2009 Olivier Award-nominated staging of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.