Handel: Aci, Galatea e Polifemo.(Sound Recording Review)

Piau, Mingardo; Naouri; Le Concert d'Astree, Hairn. Text and translation. Virgin Varitas CDC 45557 (2)

The serenata Aci, Galatea e Polifemo (actually a small one-act opera for three voices) was written in 1708, during the brief Neapolitan interlude of Handel's three-and-one-half year sojourn in Italy. The subject, to which Handel was to return eight years later for his better-known English version (the serenata Acis and Galatea), follows the Sicilian myth of the ogre Polifemo (a symbol of Mt. Etna), who, when spurned by the sea-nymph Galatea, kills her beloved, the shepherd Aci, with a boulder. Handel's final trio, an homage to Aci's death and rebirth as a stream (the river Aci flows into the Mediterranean), extols the nuptial virtues of fidelity, love and hope. (The occasion of the premiere was probably a ducal wedding.) As in so many of his early Italian journeyman works, Handel invested this hour-and-a-half-long work with superbly wrought melodies and unusual orchestrations: for example, an obbligato for bassoon and oboe enhances an aria for contralto and strings, while recorders and trumpets add color elsewhere. Such was file excellence of Handel's invention that he dipped into the well of Aci for many of his operas in later years.

This committed performance by conductor Emmanuelle Haim and Le Concert d'Astree gives new credibility to Aci as a work of dramatic force. From Ham's overture, appropriately an excerpt from one of Handel's concerti grossi, the orchestra plays with remarkable virtuosity and precision. ...