This was a performance that had two contrasting aspects. It was very well sung and played by the Early Opera Company under Christian Curnyn. All the singers – (Galatea – Anna Dennis; Acis – Samuel Boden; Damon / Coridon – Jorge Navarro Colorado; Polyphemus – Edward Grint, and Chorus – David de Winter) were strong, clearly well versed in Baroque style and having no problems with the ornamentation. Each aria was a pleasure to listen to, and the authentic instruments gave glinting colours to the music, from the recorders, the oboes and other instruments, that you would never have heard from a conventional band .
However, Acis and Galatea is a Masque, in an early 18th century pastoral vein. Its conventions are impossibly remote for an audience 300 years later, so clearly a production ‘angle’ that gives the work meaning for a modern audience is necessary. The approach chosen for this production seemed to be: set the work in a 1962 (why that date?) Mid-West University symposium on Handel’s Acis and Galatea and 18th century conventions, entitled “The games we play: a study of worldly and unworldly love through Acis and Galatea”. have the actors sitting round a bare black box stage waiting for their turn, and show some connected images and lecture points on a PowerPoint screen (disregarding the fact that they wouldn’t have had PowerPoint slides in 1963 !). Eventually, as Acis and Galatea become divine, all the characters on stage join them in their divinity amidst a field of golden corn, and the conference is abandoned. Regie-theatre is unfairly abused by many people and in general terms I support what many directors of operas are trying to do to rescue works from banality or over-familiarity. But this did seem to be incoherent. Granted this was another performance in a shoe-string, funding restricted by socially-distanced audiences. But there are so many things that could have been done with this work – a black box stage with thoughtful lighting, or with a backdrop of videoed images could have been an examination of what love means in this opera. Or you could have gone full throttle on the symposium concept and have gradually evolving , violent and angry confrontation – finally murderous – among the participants. What we saw on stage just seemed to be incoherent, I’m afraid
So I felt I would have been better off closing my eyes throughout the performance. It seemed a bit of a wasted opportunity. I also – though again one wants the Festival to profit where it can – thought it jarred to have an interval after about half an hour of music
So not one of my better outings, I’m afraid
John's musical journey 