Acis and Galatea, February 18, 2006, Hobby Center's Zilkha Hall

This 1718 opera by Handel was performed by Mercury Baroque with staging by Dominic Walsh. The cast consisted of two female and six male vocalists, two dancers, and two little boys. The dancers, Lindsey McGill and Dominico Luciano, are familiar from DWDT and were excellent. I enjoyed the performance, but had one complaint: in the first act NOTHING HAPPENS. The music was nice but too much the same throughout the first act; it was almost like listening to the same song for 45 minutes. The program notes for this act say

In the pastoral land of nymphs and shepherds, Galatea, a sea nymph who is partly divine, loves the shepherd Acis. The two pursue each other, and finally become lovers.

The pursuing seemed to consist of bumping into each other in the middle of a field. The second act picked up a bit as Polypheme got into the act. Polypheme loves Galatea; Polypheme is jealous of Acis; Polypheme kills Acis; Galatea turns Acis's dead body into a river. You know, standard Greek mythology stuff.

The female vocalists and the dancers were the highlights for me. Walsh's choreography was intriguing as always, but it was a little strange to mix contemporary ballet with a production which in almost every other way tried to remain true to how the opera would have been performed back in the day. I couldn't help but notice that as Polypheme transformed from crude, dirty monster to sophisticated, clean monster, he (or at least his clothing) began to look more and more like Walsh. I wonder if Walsh, who designed the set and costumes in addition to stage directing, did this consciously or unconsciously.