Much has already been written about the current Handel glut in our opera houses and concert halls. The problem lies, perhaps, not in quantity but in quality. The growing popularity of his music, particularly the operas, has resulted in a proliferation of indifferent performances. Few in their right minds would rate Giulio Cesare as something other than a masterpiece, but when its presentation is as variable as the Barbican's latest semi-staging, you begin to suspect that the anti-Handel lobby's case may be justified.

Based on a production at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, this was a curiously bleak affair, short on irony and human warmth. Despite the roundness of Handel's musical characterisation, most of the protagonists seemed motivated solely by ambitious rage. Sex was divorced from any concept of pleasure and treated purely as a means of power broking. Cleopatra (Veronica Cangemi) and Tolomeo (Christophe Dumaux) were incestuous lovers as well as rivals for a throne. Cangemi's seduction of Marijana Mijanovic's wild-eyed Cesare was coldly manipulative. Even the usually sympathetic Cornelia (Kristina Hammarstrom), spitting with contempt at her captors, was robbed of her dignity.

None of this would have mattered had the performance itself been more consistent. Mijanovic sounded suitably androgynous, though her singing was plagued by intonation problems. Cangemi, usually excellent, seemed either unable or unwilling to let her voice flow with ease.

The outstanding achievements came from Dumaux - dramatically so credible you forgave the occasional hoot in his lower registers - and from Hammarstrom, who was truly glorious. Renée Jacobs conducted the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra with a mixture of driven energy and genuine sensuality. The playing was exceptional, though it could not disguise the flaws of a very uneven occasion.