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| NYCO's Acis and Galatea: Handel with Care
By Philip Anson / March 27, 2001
On the Aisle |
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Since Paul Kellogg took over the New York City Opera, its seasons have benefitted immeasurably from the bright new productions imported from the Glimmerglass Opera, which are almost always worth the price of admission. The latest Glimmerglass import is Handel’s pastoral masque “Acis and Galatea”, premiered at the Alice Busch Opera House last summer. “Acis” is Handel’s unique venture into English language opera, with a poetic libretto by various hands, including John Gay , on a story from Ovid's "Metamorphoses". Handel’s musical treatment lasts a mere 2 hours including intermission, making it more of a diversion than a full-blown opera.
The NYCO’s frivolous Lamos-Steinberg-Hoffman production further lightens an already fluffy work. This is the same team that brought us a bewitching Glimmerglass/NYCO production of Britten’s Paul Bunyan in 1998. In that production, Britten’s music and Auden’s libretto provided the brains, which Lamos-Steinberg-Hoffman clothed in beauty. The same witty updated aesthetic applied to Handel’s glib pastoral doesn’t work quite so well. Nymphs and swains clad in Gap and Nautica toss beach balls and flirt with each other, regardless of gender. The sets are cheap but colorful. Though critics compared the summershare look to an episode of Gilligan’s Island, Lamos seems to have found a modern bourgeois correlative for the mythic pastoral situation -- yuppies at college being about as ardent and amoral as any socioeconomic class in western society. Since American audiences have minimal interest in classical Greek mythology, a producer’s only options are contemporary realism (Lamos) or abstract stylization (Robert Wilson). The former is the lesser of two evils.
Casts at Glimmerglass and the NYCO are always young, cute, good actors, and good singers, more or less in that order. Acis was sung by American tenor William Burden, who made an impression as Pylades in the NYCO’s homoerotic Iphigenie en Tauride several years ago. He’s back in khaki, as a preppy frat boy wooing sorority gal Galatea, sung by American soprano Christine Brandes. Physically and vocally, the couple was well-matched. At times Burden seemed to be forcing his voice, but in general he was easy on the eyes and ears. Brandes was superb, delivering both sensitive singing and genuine Handelian style.
Her only rival for top artistic honors was Canadian tenor John Tessier as shepherd Damon, making a very auspicious company debut. The press called his performance “proud ” (Newsday), “winning” (NY Times), and “elegantly sung” (New York). Parterre Box said Tessier “offered the most consistently stylish singing, well controlled and sweet.” Indeed, he sang with remarkable ardour and beauty, producing a breathtakingly steady, clean line. More’s the wonder, since his performance was a victory over an embarrassing outfit of tourist shorts, knee socks, flowery shirt, and nerd glasses. As a sort of gay geek, Tessier had the unenviable task of trying to lure Acis back from Galatea to his former brunch buddies. This directorially-imposed conflict raised distracting and unnecessary questions about gender politics and sexuality that the chorus boys themselves didn’t seem to accept. The NYCO and Glimmerglass have played the gay card with more sophistication in other productions.
The problematic role of the love-lorn giant Polyphemus was sung and growled by American bass-baritone Dean Elzinga. Elzinga made a good impression in the NYCO’s recent production of Virgil Thompson’s The Mother of Us All, but he seemed unhappy here, clad in worker’s overalls and with a miner’s lamp strapped to his forehead (his cyclops eye, get it?), lowered from the flies in a box depicting a miniature diorama of the set. Polyphemus is a thankless role and Elzinga emerged from this awkward production with honor intact. His voice did not sound especially charming or efficient compared to many talented bass-baritones around today. His one big aria, "O ruddier than the cherry" could not erase the memory of Bryn Terfel’s sexy and funny interpretation, but he survived it.
The sets, probably the least important aspect of this type of pastoral masque, were critically panned. Peter G. Davis in New York Magazine derided the “enormous blue statue of Eros perched on top of a glittering purple mound of earth with a few metallic trees in front of a corrugated cyclorama.” Parterre Box complained, “The skimpy set, a glitzy hillock and some tinfoil trees, recalled a high school homecoming float.”
Changes were made from the original Glimmerglass production. Acis’s transformation into a fountain -- originally featuring the tenor painted blue and wearing nothing but a loincloth -- got unwanted laughs, so for the NYCO production it was left to the imagination. The chorus mimed swimming and bathing in the stream. The buffed choristers took their shirts off, while the chubbier ones remain clothed.
British conductor Jane Glover did what she could with the NYCO orchestra, which sounded feeble from my third row seat. The NYCO’s "sound enhancement system" means that the only real judgment a critic can make is on pitch and style. Volume, projection, and dynamics are all at the mercy of the microphones and amplifiers, so mean nothing. Singers sound different as they move across the stage, as they stand, kneel and lay down. From my seat I heard a lot of real voice and separate waves of amped sound coming from back and sides. To minimize this dreadful situation, one must sit at the back of the orchestra or in the second or first tier.
Credits: Acis and Galatea. Music by G.F. Handel. Libretto by John Gay, Alexander Pope and John Hughes. Directed by Mark Lamos. With Christine Brandes, William Burden, John Tessier and Dean Elzinga. New York City Opera Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Jane Glover. New York State Theater, Lincoln Center.
>New York City Opera.
Copyright by Philip Anson (Questions or comments? Philanson@aol.com).
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