Reviews 2010
Reviews 2010
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by George Frideric Handel, directed by Marshall Pynkoski
Opera Atelier, Elgin Theatre, Toronto
October 30-November 7, 2010
Opera Atelier celebrates the opening of its 25th anniversary season with a new production of Handel’s opera, Acis and Galatea (1718, revised 1739). The opera may be short and uncomplicated, but OA gives it a luxurious production with dancers outnumbering singers three to one. The music-making could hardly be bettered.
Acis and Galatea is the epitome of the genre known as the pastoral opera. Pastorals, which placed shepherds and shepherdesses in lead roles, were a way for writers of classical and neoclassical literature to explore the theme of man at one with nature. Within this genre, love and death are viewed as part of the cycle of our natural world. In Handel’s opera, the water nymph Galatea (Mireille Asselin) and the shepherd Acis (Thomas Macleay) are blissfully in love. Potential unhappiness lurks in the form of the monster Polyphemus (João Fernandes), who also loves Galatea and plans to kill Acis. OA has previously presented this story straight, but this time director Marshall Pynkoski decides to reinterpret the character Damon (Lawrence Wiliford) not as Acis’s best friend but as a mountain spirit who seems to guide the action to its preordained conclusion. While this was not the librettist’s original intention, it does reinforce the opera’s theme that the natural order decrees that happiness is followed by unhappiness.
All four singers give impeccable performances and move with the same grace as dancers. Macleay's dark tenor easily assumes a heroic tone. Asselin’s crystalline soprano effortlessly copes with runs and trills. Fernandes, with his pitch-dark bass, manages to make the monster’s love both comic and menacing at once. Wiliford obviously relishes Damon’s new Puck-like identity in his highly physical performance. Virtually all the music is accompanied by dance with Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg’s delightfully elegant choreography. Under David Fallis, the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra produces sound both gorgeous and full of verve, with especially fine work from the winds. If, somehow, you have never seen Opera Atelier before, this would be a excellent place to start.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2010-11-01.
Photo: Mireille Asselin and Thomas Macleay. ©Bruce Zinger.
2010-11-01
Acis and Galatea