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by George Frideric Handel, directed by Marshall Pynkoski

Opera Atelier, Elgin Theatre, Toronto

October 24-27, 2024

“What joys I feel! What charms I see”

Opera Atelier is currently presenting its fourth production of Handel’s opera Acis and Galatea, last staged by the company in Toronto in 2010. Though featuring an entirely different cast and conductor than in 2010, such are the exacting standards of the company that the present production is equally as excellent as the 2010 production.

As I noted in my 2010 review, “Acis and Galatea (1718, revised 1739) 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 and the shepherd Acis are blissfully in love. Potential unhappiness lurks in the form of the monster Polyphemus, who also loves Galatea and plans to kill Acis”.

The libretto for Acis is by John Gay (1685-1732), best known as the librettist for The Beggar’s Opera (1728), the ballad opera that later inspired The Threepenny Opera (1928) by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. None of the satire of The Beggar’s Opera is present in Acis which is meant to present an ideal world, though the character of Polyphemus is not dissimilar from the low-lifes in Macheath’s gang of criminals in the ballad opera.

Gay lists the character of Damon as a friend of Acis, but beginning with the 2007 production, director Marshall Pynkoski reimagined the role as a mountain spirit who seems to guide the action to its preordained conclusion. This means that Damon has a much greater presence since he oversees the events as onstage as a kind of resident stage-manager. His presence through both the comic and tragic parts of the story suggests that both modes are part of the cycle of nature.

All four singers are making their role debuts in this work and two are making their debuts with Opera Atelier. Since all four have been directed by Pynkoski before, they perform with a complete unity of style that other opera companies cannot hope to achieve.

The two singers making their debuts with OA are French tenor Antonin Rondepierre as Acis and Malagasy tenor Blaise Rantoanina as Damon. Rondepierre has a full, rounded voice and an admirable technique that allows him to hold sustained, unwavering high notes with ease. Rantoanina’s voice is located slightly higher than Rondepierre’s. While notes in his lower register tend to blend with the orchestra, those in his higher register sail over it with a golden ring. Rondepierre engages us with as the ardent young shepherd. When Acis is sure that Galatea returns his love, he slides down the side of the proscenium dumbstruck with bliss. Rantoanina is a genial figure as the re-imagined Damon, wearing a unitard new to this production painted with the sylvan landscape he represents. Rantoanina’s very physical Damon curiously surveys the players of the drama he is directing and comments on their actions through amusing signs and gestures.

Soprano Meghan Lindsay and bass-baritone Douglas Williams are much-loved OA regulars. It might seem impossible but Lindsay’s soprano gains in beauty and expressivity with every successive production. Her sound has both brightness and depth. She held the audience completely spellbound with Galatea’s air “Heart, the seat of soft delight” where the grace of her singing expressed both Galatea’s sorrow and continued love of the deceased Acis.

OA audiences know Williams for such roles as Lucifer in Handel’s La Resurrezione, Neptune in Idomeneo and title role in Don Giovanni. As Polyphemus, Williams proves he is just as adept at playing a forlorn lout as he is at supernatural beings and legendary men. Williams gives the most musing account ever of “O ruddier than the cherry”, making its endless repetitions seem like the giant’s simplistic solution for filling out the song. Williams’s powerful, already pitch-dark bass seems to have grown in resonance even in its lowest notes.

OA audiences are so accustomed to see David Fallis conduct, it was a surprise to see that role taken by Christopher Bagan. Bagan has been the Assistant Conductor for OA mainstage productions since 2022 and edited the new score of Acis that OA is using for this production. Under Bagan, the 19-member Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra plays with vivacity and precision. The rhythm in Handel’s music is so strong that it is absolutely natural that so much of the score is accompanied by dance elegantly choreographed by Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg. Especially delightful is Galatea’s air “Hush, ye pretty warbling quire!” where three male dancers as birds (signalled only by a feather in the hair) seem deliberately to ignore Galatea’s directions, “Cease your song, and take your flight”.

Opera Atelier’s Acis and Galatea is a deeply restorative experience that frees the mind of care and fills it with beauty. That is major reason why so many people have been devotees of OA for so long.

Christopher Hoile

Photo: Antonin Rondepierre as Acis, Meghan Lindsay as Galatea and Blaise Rantoanina as Damon; Antonin Rondepierre as Acis and Meghan Lindsay as Galatea; Douglas Williams as Polyphemus. © 2024 Bruce Zinger.

For tickets visit www.operaatelier.com.