Operatic Elegance
By: Mark G. Simon
02/28/2007
I must draw your attention to a beautiful and imaginative staging of Handel's Acis and Galatea now running at the Ithaca College Theatre. The simple but stunning stage images created by director David Lefkowich, lighting designer Steve TenEyck and costume designer Jennifer Caprio harmonize so well with the story and music that the most indifferent spectators cannot fail to be drawn in to their magic.
Acis and Galatea is a good choice for a college opera production. It's not too long, nor too taxing for the principals (though it does give them a good work-out), and it makes ample use of the chorus. Plus it's in English, so there are no language issues, and the orchestration is light enough so the words can be easily heard and comprehended by the audience without super-titles.
In Handel's day, this work might have borne a designation such as "serenata," for it ignores many of the conventions of opera seria. For instance, the exit convention, which decreed that a character had to leave the stage after singing an aria (thus insuring bigger applause) is suspended, and thankfully no castrati are required.
We can appreciate the latter point especially when Acis, played by Andy McCullough on the night I attended, takes the stage. His strong tenor voice always had presence and the diction carried clearly to the back of the hall. He could summon tenderness, as in his aria "Love in her Eyes Sits Playing" and the brilliant aria "Love Sounds the Alarm" was full of cojones.
Victoria Benson, as Galatea, was at a disadvantage from having to sing her first aria from the back of the stage. She gained emotional power as the show progressed, from the charming "As When the Dove" to give a highly moving "Heart, the Seat of Soft Delight" at the end. It took Daniel Greenwood a little while to warm up as Acis' sidekick Damon, but one enjoyed his agility in the aria "Would You Gain the Gentle Creature."
Garry McLinn had only brief stage time as the cyclops Polypheme, but he thoroughly stole the show in his one big number "Ruddier than the Cherry," in which his enjoyment of playing the villain was manifest. Handel recognized that monsters cannot express their love with the same eloquence as shepherds or goddesses, but McLinn found interesting ways to vary the expression in this repetitious piece all the while performing comic stunts of villainy involving voodoo-like dolls of the various chorus members. Never before have I seen a singer upstage his own singing in such spectacular fashion. This was the single example in the opera of the staging interfering with the music, but it was so much fun, one could hardly complain.
I appreciated the way the director used the succession of da capo arias as a canvas to paint interesting stage pictures which complemented the music. The costumes were mostly 18th century, but the lighting design was abstract, color coding the three scenes in green, red and blue, the colors of earth, fire and water.
The stage was partially built over the orchestra pit, to allow for Acis to depart from this world through a trap door. From this would issue, in the third scene, a large piece of blue fabric which the chorus would wave about to create the effect of the river created from Galatea's tears.
The orchestra, led by Mark Kaczmarczyk, did a commendable job with Handel's score, successfully emulating the lightness of period strings. The oboes acquitted themselves admirably of their concerto-like parts, and took on the burden of the recorder parts as well.
I'm hoping that word of mouth has helped fill the numerous empty seats I observed last Thursday. Anyone with an interest in opera, theater or baroque music will find this production of Acis and Galatea an experience they will carry in their heads for years to come.
Acis and Galatea will have two more performances, 2/28 and 3/2 at 8pm. For tickets and more info, 607-274-3224.
Mark G. Simon, after 22 years of writing music reviews for the Ithaca Times, will be departing in March for the Washington DC area. This is his final review.
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