Handel: Acis and Galatea

Handel: Acis and Galatea

Handel's sunny pastorale ("oratorio" seems too imposing a word) <I>Acis and Galatea</I> is just the thing to cheer you up if you're feeling gloomy, its bittersweet ending notwithstanding. It gets performed and recorded these days in several different versions, ranging from Handel's chamber-scaled 1718 original (using only five soloists, who also make up the chorus) to a German-language arrangement by Mozart with four-part choir and orchestra. William Christie's version follows the one that Handel used for a 1739 revival of the piece, in which he gave the sidekick role of Damon (originally for tenor) to a boy soprano and tacked onto Acis and Galatea's duet "Happy we" a choral reprise. Whatever the variants used, this is by far the best rendition of <I>Acis</I> I've ever encountered. The gentle nymph Galatea is the perfect role for Sophie Daneman's light soprano; Paul Agnew's gorgeous tenor is just as well suited to Acis--ardent and brave, yet light enough that you can believe the giant Polyphemus could crush him with a rock. Because he's the villain, Polyphemus is one of the few characters at whose stupidity one can laugh without feeling mean-spirited; the only problem with Alan Ewing's beautifully sung reading is that it's not very funny--it's perhaps too musically nuanced for a character that dumb. As Damon, Patricia Petibon sounds a bit ripe for a shepherd boy, but she's superb, and her embellishments are ingenious (if not particularly spontaneous); tenor Joseph Cornwell as Coridon gives a marvelous (and surprisingly robust) rendition of "Would you gain the tender creature." Conductor William Christie has chosen well--not just his singers but also his tempi: for example, "Must I my Acis still bemoan" is much slower than usual, and much more convincingly sad. We think of Christie as a French baroque specialist, but he shows a real feeling for Handel here. <I>--Matthew Westphal</I>