Acis and Galatea
Libretto by John Gay
First performance: Middlesex (London), 1718
Roles:
Galatea, nymph in love with Acis (soprano)
Acis, shepherd in love with Galatea (tenor)
Damon, a shepherd (tenor)
Polyphemus, cyclops in love with Galatea (bass)
Chorus of nymphs and shepherds
Program Notes by Martin Pearlman
Acis and Galatea is Handel's only dramatic work never to have left the repertoire. During his lifetime, it received more performances (about 70) than any of his other works. Called variously a masque, an oratorio, and an "English pastoral opera" with music "after the Italian manner," its popularity in Handel's time and ever since is not difficult to understand: it has the youthful lightness and freshness that we hear in his earlier Italian works, it is short enough that it can fit different kinds of programs -- and it is in English. It is in fact his earliest dramatic work in English, coming just before a great run of Italian operas and long before his final shift into writing English oratorios.
Handel composed Acis and Galatea in 1718 for a private performance at Cannons in Middlesex, where he was resident composer in the musical establishment of the Earl of Carnarvon, soon to be the Duke of Chandos. The myth of Acis and Galatea was a popular one and had been set to music by a number of composers, as well as by Handel himself, who ten years earlier had written his Italian cantata Aci, Galatea e Polifemo. The libretto is by John Gay, who later wrote The Beggar's Opera, although some lines of Alexander Pope have also been identified in it. The story is comes from John Dryden's English translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, which had been published a year before Handel's setting.
The history of this work after its first performance in 1718 is interesting. In 1732, Handel became angry about an unauthorized production of it in a competing London theater. He responded by writing a completely new version and calling in his "big guns," his Italian opera stars, to perform it for him. He managed to put his competitors out of business, but in the process created a hodgepodge of a work that distorted the original almost beyond recognition. For one thing, it was bilingual: over half of it was in Italian, because the poor English diction of his Italian singers had been severely criticized. He also expanded the number of soloists from four to nine, in order to include a larger stellar cast that the public could not resist. All this he accomplished by mixing together music from his original Acis and Galatea with his earlier Aci, Galatea e Polifemo and some of his other Italian cantatas.
Despite the popular success of this potpourri version, Handel certainly understood its problems. With his competitors out of the way, he decided to revive the work again in 1739, but this time he returned to the original Acis and Galatea and made relatively minor changes. In this second version of the original work, the version that is normally heard today, Handel divided the piece for the first time into two acts, adding the chorus "Happy we" to end the first act. He would also have used a real chorus this time, whereas in 1718, he had more limited musical resources and had soloist soloists sing the choral parts.
The popularity of Acis continued after Handel's death. Nearly thirty years later, Mozart was commissioned to arrange Acis, Messiah, and two other works by Handel in a more contemporary orchestration. In the next century, Mendelssohn did likewise for his own concerts.
Boston Baroque Performances
Acis and Galatea
November 11, 1993
NEC’s Jordan Hall, Boston, MA
Martin Pearlman, conductor
Soloists:
Jayne West, soprano
Frank Kelley, tenor
Mark Bleeke, tenor
David Evitts, baritone
November 6, 1987
NEC’s Jordan Hall, Boston, MA
Martin Pearlman, conductor
Soloists:
Nancy Armstrong, soprano
Frank Kelley, tenor
Jeffrey Thomas, tenor
Matthew Lau, bass