Julius Caesar; Siegfried – review

When a staging of a Handel opera fails, however comprehensively, the music wins out. Thank heaven for large mercies. English National Opera's new Julius Caesar opened this week with a staging of such folly that by breakfast next day it was near impossible to believe it really happened. Should we have been shocked at the sight of Ptolemy wrenching the tongue out of a slaughtered giraffe and slathering it in the face of a grieving woman? Or revolted by the bloodletting of a life-sized crocodile into a tin bucket, or appalled at the vision of a widow holding her husband's severed head in a plastic bag like a lump of uncooked ham? The advent of Caesar in dinner jacket and underpants carrying a bunch of balloons goes straight into the annals of pictorial awfulness.

Or was it all a send up? Think theatre of cruelty crossed with Noises Off via Ariadne auf Naxos – that moment of commotion when the serious musicians find out that a burlesque troupe has been double-booked for the same event. For this was a co-production with Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre, whom many will member with pleasure or horror from their The Rite of Spring for ENO in 2009 which was nominated for an Olivier award.

Accordingly choreography had a heavy presence in this Julius Caesar, variously floppy and folksy, intrusive or inconsequential. A parade of girls in unflattering white frocks and men mainly in white suits jiggled and emoted each time a dance rhythm struck up, and with so many 3/8, 3/4 or 6/8 time signatures in this score, the chances were plentiful. As if to entertain us when Handel's music, with all its subtle variations, was managing quite well already, these dancers spun and wove, upstaging the singers at every turn. The dancers, one should say, were professional throughout.

Best advice was to obey the words of Michael Keegan-Dolan, director and choreographer, in his programme essay: "If you close your eyes and listen to Handel's music with attention you will see images. If you remain open and stand in a responsive space the music will find a way to move you." Let's avoid cheap satire in the face of such advice. Keegan-Dolan presumably wanted us to watch and engage with his production rather than drift off in a trance but it was a disheartening experience.

In Andrew Lieberman's designs the action took place against a chipboard backdrop with a tree as the main prop, a few tables to walk or dance on, Stetsons, guns, dead animals, croquet mallets, people with stockings over their heads – all the usual accoutrements of a Handel opera seria. There was some differentiation in clothing between Romans and Egyptians but the politics of this work, first seen at London's Haymarket theatre in 1724, remained vague.

But ah, the music. Christian Curnyn, a notable young baroque specialist who also conducted Castor and Pollux for ENO, set brisk speeds and inspired taut, nimble invention from the ENO orchestra, with endlessly delicate continuo playing from David Newby (cello), Jakob Lindberg (lute) and Nicholas Ansdell-Evans and Joseph McHardy (harpsichord). If the arias at times sounded similar, with a tendency to end after an exaggerated slamming on of brakes in the closing bars, there was still much joy in the instrumental colours, especially from low woodwind. Curnyn largely followed Charles Mackerras's edition (used by ENO in the mid-1970s when Janet Baker sang the title role). This is a long work, necessitating cuts. Some recitative went in favour of reinstating arias: a wise decision.

The finest singing came from Patricia Bardon as the sorrowful Cornelia, her voice deep-hued and expressive in tragic dignity. Lawrence Zazzo's Caesar was characterful, clear and accurate, if sometimes lacking heft, a problem which also afflicted Anna Christy, too light-voiced to convey the fiery wiles of Cleopatra. Tim Mead (Ptolemy) and Andrew Craig Brown (Achilla) added fine-tuned villainy. Daniela Mack was accomplished as Cornelia's son Sesto, here turned into a daughter which subtly wrecked the balance of a mother-son relationship and the idea of a boy grasping the reins of power and revenge – but what the heck?

Owing to a diary clash, Julius Caesar meant having to miss Götterdämmerung, the last part of the Royal Opera's Ring Cycle revival. As lopsided compensation I enjoyed two Siegfrieds, in London and Berlin. In the Covent Garden version we see Bryn Terfel – singing his first Wanderer in this ROH production – spinning perilously on a huge grey slab, recognisable as the firewall, to coin a phrase, behind which Brünnhilde was confined at the end of Die Walküre.

Despite this dizzying ride, Terfel brought gravitas to the role and, as in his Wotan, again showed an exemplary understanding of the text and sang rapturously. Susan Bullock's glowing Brünnhilde, too, brimmed with vitality and power. As Siegfried, the simple, thuggish hero who wins her, Stefan Vinke stayed the course but did not match Bullock's pinging assurance in top notes. Gerhard Siegel was an ingratiating Mime. Sophie Bevan enchanted as an aerial Woodbird. Wolfgang Koch (Alberich) was ill so acted the role while Jochen Schmeckenbecher sang from the side – extremely well considering he only landed at Heathrow as Act 1 was beginning. Antonio Pappano, conductor, and the ROH orchestra were on mighty, blazing form.

Four days later in Berlin, Daniel Barenboim, whom the young Pappano assisted in Bayreuth in the 80s, conducted a new Siegfried, part of the Staatsoper's ongoing Ring with La Scala, Milan. Directed and designed by Guy Cassiers, the Antwerp-born theatre director, it is fashioned chiefly from 3D video projection. In contrast to Warner, Cassiers appears to have no ideas: aside from a framework of animal cages and cloud chambers in Act 1, or the ghostly silver lamé forest in Act 2, it's all an illusion. Images of falling water, molten lava, glacial striation, swarms and murmurations and eruptions swirl and surge before us, more referential than a typology of nature's randomness. No current rigid cliches of sex parlours or human cloning here then. Inevitably the boos for the production team were raucous.

Yet there is more to it. Every stage picture is rich and painterly, as if the abstract canvases of Anselm Kiefer and Wolfgang Tillmans had been animated. Does this help our understanding of the Ring? An open question, but it certainly doesn't obstruct. The cast was uneven but boasted Lance Ryan in the title role. This Canadian heldentenor is the choice for next year's bicentennial Ring at Bayreuth: he has the stamina and the notes. Peter Bronder (Mime), Johannes Martin Kränzle (Alberich) and Anna Larsson (Erda) excelled. Juha Uusitalo's Wanderer disappointed. Iréne Theorin as Brünnhilde compensated for some squawks with a flawless "Ewig war ich, ewig bin ich", though her blond wig was a bit of a shocker.

In the Staatsoper's temporary home, the Schiller theate, the orchestra sounded virile and alert to every nuance. Barenboim knows how to rein in and unleash to maximum effect. This was a tantalising foretaste of his promised Ring at the Proms next summer. I am now on a strict Wagner exclusion diet until 2013.