This latest version of what is surely Handel’s finest opera – to my mind, the finest of all Baroque operas – is a live recording, made in Vienna last year. Giulio Cesare is overdue for a new version: there have been several recordings over the years, including the English-language ENO production under Charles Mackerras (available in various forms and now as a CD set from Chandos), a couple of versions with Julius Caesar – of course, originally a castrato part – transposed down for a baritone, which really won’t do these days, and one from France, but the René Jacobs recording made in 1991, cited above, still holds the field.

Marc Minkowski provides a strong challenge, with a performance that is strongly cast and which certainly gains in drama and sense of continuity from being recorded live. Of course, it loses something, too: there are moments of scrappy playing, the acoustic isn’t ideal (the bass instruments often have an undesirable weight and boominess) and there are several points where, I think, one or other of the singers would have been grateful for the opportunity for a re-take – here I am thinking particularly of some of the more ambitious vocal elaboration in the da capo sections. Minkowski, who usually favours quickish tempi in Handel, does so sometimes here (in the choral minuet at the end of the overture, for example, where Handel says non troppo allegro, and it is indeed very troppo), and the various outbursts of rage, on the part of Caesar, Sesto, Achillas and Cleopatra at different stages in the work, are duly furious, if not more than duly.

But here and there, too, he is very expansive: in Cornelia’s first aria, for example, and in her duet with Sesto at the end of Act 1, which is almost romantically slow. At several points I felt that a little more moderation, a little less obvious determination to drive home an expressive point, would have served the music better. In the recitative, Minkowski varies the pace a good deal to clarify the meaning, possibly erring on the side of deliberation. I found it surprising that so very little could be heard of the harpsichords (two players are named) in the orchestral texture: this tends to make the orchestral sound spongy and devitalised and texturally austere.

There is an unusual degree of consistency among the types of voice in the cast. I admit I should have liked to hear the two great female roles sung in fuller, warmer voices. Yet both Magdalena Ko?ená and Charlotte Hellekant offer admirable performances. I would have relished a touch more of voluptuousness from Ko?ená in ‘V’adoro, pupille’, Cleopatra’s (successful) attempt to inflame Caesar, even if is clear and brightly sung – and her ornaments in the da capo here truly add fire and force.

I liked her precise, rather knowing singing of ‘Non disperar’ (for some reason her last Act 1 aria, ‘Tu la mia stella’ is omitted); and there is real nobility and feeling for the expressive character of Handel’s line in ‘Se pietà’. As an interpretation this has greater depth and power than Barbara Schlick’s on the Jacobs set. Cornelia’s role is always problematic: she is bereaved in the opening scene (when her husband’s head is produced), and sings almost entirely elegiac music, but has also to convey something that justifies three men falling passionately in love with her in the course of the opera. Hellekant is a firm and clear singer who shapes the lines with considerable feeling; she uses more vibrato (even if a small one) than most ‘period’ singers.

Anne Sofie von Otter is a delight as Sesto, a young man’s role (Pompey and Cornelia’s son), originally taken by a soprano although later Handel arranged it for a tenor. It is sung with much poise and feeling. Caesar is sung by Marijana Mijanovic, possessor of a strong and well-defined mezzo, not quite the big, dominant voice or characterisation that one might hope for in the role but certainly a singer who is accurate (the semiquaver runs are done with precision and evenness) and clear in attack and articulation. ‘Al lampo dell’armi’ in Act 2 is carried off with brilliance and vigour, and the amorous ‘Se in fiorito’ a little earlier is charmingly sung although the da capo decoration, with solo violin, is perhaps overdone. Bejun Mehta’s countertenor, a light, well-focused, slightly grainy voice with no hint of hoot, works well for Tolemeo’s music, which he phrases with a natural feeling for line. A forceful and energetic Achillas is provided by Alan Ewing.

It would be hard to say that this set offers a decisive improvement on the Jacobs version, where Jennifer Larmore’s Caesar and Bernarda Fink’s Cornelia perhaps leave a stronger mark than those here. But taken all round, the theatrical vitality of the Minkowski perhaps secures it first place. It’s certainly a version of this fine opera that any Handelian will want to hear.