This season, the New York City Opera presents Handel's Acis and Galatea. "When it comes to Handel, he not only lives but thrives at City Opera. Here Ovid’s Metamorphoses is both the source and the inspiration for Acis and Galatea, one of Handel’s most elegant and sensual works." Here are two reviews.
An Entertaining Opera Lost in Electronic Goo
By FRED KIRSHNIT [NY Sun, 18 April 2006]
When Georg Frideric Handel was born in 1685, one of the world's most inspired composers was hard at work transcribing the story of "Acis and Galatea" from the dactylic hexameter of Ovid to the stately dances and long recitatives of his own art. That composer was Jean-Baptiste Lully, and his version of the story was quite different from the Handel opera that premiered Sunday afternoon at City Opera.
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Handel's 'Acis and Galatea' at City Opera: Pastorale as Picnic
By BERNARD HOLLAND [NY Times, 18 April 2006]
Handel's "Acis and Galatea," a regular little Easter Bunny of an opera, distributed its basket of charms at the New York City Opera on Sunday afternoon. Handel's early-18th-century career was heavy on operas in Italian intended for the commercial theater. "Acis" is in English and meant for private consumption in a noble house. It is the mark of the composer that a light-footed pastorale could be carried off with such exquisite care and imagination.