Acis and Galatea | Adelaide Festival 2022 review

Full of well-known Handel tunes, with clever word painting, it is hardly surprising this work has kept a place in the repertoire.

Adelaide Festival 2022. Acis and Galatea. Picture: Tony Lewis

Acis and Galatea –

Resonance: Chamber Landscapes

ADELAIDE FESTIVAL

UKARIA Cultural Centre

March 12

Resonance curator and Pinchgut Opera’s founder Erin Helyard directed a truly scintillating performance of Handel’s evergreen pastoral opera Acis and Galatea to a packed out UKARIA on this occasion, now that restrictions have been lifted.

As Baroque specialists Pinchgut were on familiar musical turf of course and that paid off as Handel scores this version for just five singers, five instrumentalists and one director, all working very hard throughout.

Full of well-known Handel tunes and shot through with sophisticated Handel scoring and clever word painting, it is hardly surprising this work has maintained a place in the repertoire since its inception.

Adelaide Festival 2022. Chloe Lankshear in Acis and Galatea. Picture: Tony Lewis

Soprano Chloe Lankshear’s Galatea was beautifully crafted with plenty of colouration, although always within Baroque sensibilities; tenor Louis Hurley’s Acis brought dash and great élan to the role; while Andrew O’Connor had fun as the villainous Polyphemus, providing strong vocal resonance and characterisation.

Even music lovers who have never heard all of Acis and Galatea will be familiar with its chart busting numbers such as Polyphemus’ O Ruddier Than The Cherry, which O’Connor’s richly colourful bass hit spot on, and Love Sounds The Alarm, with Hurley mustering his martial ardour to good effect.

All five instrumentalists played with tremendous musical discipline and immense good humour, absolute musts in this sort of work. But special acknowledgment must go to Adam Masters’ oboe for its superb trumpet-like qualities that added so much edge to the ensemble.