You know you’ll never forget, and then you do. But not this time. Exactly 25 summers ago, at Glyndebourne, early in David McVicar’s smashing Bollywood-does-the-Raj production of George Frideric Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Cleopatra’s psycho brother leapt to his feet in a fury, landed a snap kick to a metal tray that flew sky high, crashing like a cymbal, and exploded into a tirade etched in liquid lighting. Who the hell was that?

Christophe Dumaux, that was who. A lithe young Frenchman aged 24 or so, he was breathing fire as Tolomeo, who will stop at nothing to snatch his sister’s throne. Fast forward to this summer’s Salzburg Festival, with Dumaux now in command as the guy who came, saw, and conquered. Watch the video, filmed live on August 2, and know from his opening solo: this is a voice, this is singing, and this is an actor you will never forget.

A Tale of Two Tolomeos: A quarter century ago, Dumaux—Salzburg’s latest Caesar, in shirtsleeves—broke out at Glyndebourne as Cleo’s psycho brother, now portrayed by Yuriy Mynenko, with the peekaboo hair.

Where to start? The vibrant gorgeousness of the sound: ablaze at the top of his range yet never edgy; bronze and feral in the depths; seamless across the registers. The thrilling control, however breakneck the tempo, every hemidemisemiquaver in crystal definition. The stoic eloquence when Caesar contemplates mortality. His sensuality as a lover. What’s more, Dumaux owns the stage. If, 20 years on, the pageboy silhouette of yore is (just) starting to trend Falstaffian, he carries the weight like a sea captain patrolling the deck of his very own galleon. And the camera adores him. As a string consort plays sweet music, he holds a long close-up just by listening—doing nothing, just opening his soul.

For sheer vocality, Dumaux’s stiffest competition comes from the husky mezzo of Lucile Richardot as Cornelia, the widow of Pompey, Caesar’s great Roman rival. Cornelia’s inseparable sidekick is her son Sesto, who talks a great game about avenging his father; but the skylark piping of the twitchy male soprano Federico Fiorio makes a mockery of the character’s leonine pretensions. The bright if monochromatic Olga Kuchynska makes for a presentable Cleopatra, never disappointing but never thrilling, either. Stepping into Dumaux’s old shoes as Tolomeo, Yuriy Mynenko’s reach exceeds his grasp.

Pompey lies dead in a blue suit, mourned by his widow Cornelia (Lucile Richardson), while his son Sesto (Federico Fiorio) agitates in Caesar’s impromptu Situation Room.

The production is by Dmitri Tcherniakov, whose dystopian visions of the collapsing world order are the toast of Europe’s top opera houses. This time, he sets the table with an air-raid warning and closes the loop, hours later, with the kaboom of a bunker-buster. Our poor eardrums! In the interim, we’re stuck with the cast in an underground shelter area, all concrete, chain link, and hazard tape. Eye appeal: zero, with demerits for Cleopatra’s Dynel wig of bubble-gum pink. Rather than Pompey’s severed head (a token!), Tolomeo welcomes Caesar to Egypt with the whole damn body. There it lies, endlessly, always in the way.

The good news is that in the theater, conviction can score where credibility and logic falter. As pros must, the ensemble buys in to Tcherniakov’s metanarrative. Cleopatra, Tolomeo, and especially Sesto, who bounces off walls, overact like crazy and look silly. Only Dumaux seems able to follow direction yet transcend cartoon. Emmanuelle Haïm conducts the classy period ensemble Le Concert d’Astrée with oomph.

Giulio Cesare in Egitto is available on demand on medici.tv

Matthew Gurewitsch writes about opera and classical music for AIR MAIL. He lives in Hawaii