No worries that George Frideric Handel composed Acis, Galatea & Polyphemus in 1708 when he was 23 years old and soaking up Italian culture. Three centuries and more later, the 90-minute Acis proved as fresh as a spring meadow, as the romance-soaked libretto by Nicola Giuvo might have expressed, in the care of OrpheusPDX, Portland’s 3-year-old summer chamber opera company led by Christopher Mattaliano. It was performed Aug. 3 and 4 at Portland’s acoustically attuned Lincoln Performance Hall.
Lately and fortunately, we’re hearing more than the Messiah of the Baroque composer’s music, including his 40-plus operas. Seattle Opera performed the rarely staged Alcina in October 2023, and it was a hit. With Acis, a small-cast and little-performed gem, Mattaliano had his notes in order by choosing the best-fitting conductor, cast and creatives for the piece. And so it goes: OrpheusPDX continues its run of “intimate operas” (its tagline) with widespread appeal.
George Manahan, a colleague of former Portland Opera director Mattaliano’s in previous years, and well known by Portland opera-goers, conducted sensitively, making sure that he was adjusting to the three singers’ voices’ paces. He called Handel’s music “pulse-driven,” and the rhythmic nature drove the opera throughout. Manahan strung together like real pearls the Handel melodies and harmonies and colorful aria after aria redolent of Italian influences. In the orchestra pit’s small ensemble, he directed, among other instruments, a theorbo, a long-necked lute. Musician John Lenti, considered the “rock star” of the baroque stringed instrument, played it.
Stage director Chas Rader-Shieber, a pro at shaping baroque opera — he directed the debut OrpheusPDX opera L’Orfeo in 2022 — did a masterful job of sustaining an 18th-century sensibility, braiding in a comic twist. A bucolic Fragonard-like painting looms over the lovers’ half-stage while Polyphemus’ dark science hideout occupied the other. In Rader-Shieber’s charming way, humor accompanied the music. The two oddball animal-headed servants mincing about in the lovers’ space, sometimes showing sympathy, were pure fun. The lovers’ costumes and wigs were zany and colorful, yet captured an 18th-century shape. Costume designer Sydney Dufka, hair designer Sara Beukers, and their assistants deserve credit for those aspects, as does Solomon Weisbard for the lighting that drew a line between the lovers’ insistence on romance/emotion and Polyphemus’ cold, scientific nature.
But back to Acis, a love story interrupted by jealous love-hungry “monster,” Polyphemus, inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which Handel adored and turned to often for inspiration. Polyphemus, sung by multi-ranged fast rising-star Douglas Williams, was a white-wigged black-robed scientist with a telescope and a ladder to spy on young lovers. The two in love were the shepherd Acis, sung by soprano Katherine Whyte, and the sea nymph Galatea lusted after by Polyphemus. Galatea is performed, pitch perfectly, by popular Portland mezzo and Mattaliano favorite Hannah Penn, who has sung in a number of his operas, including in the vivid 2022 Dark Sisters.
Right off the bat, gender-bending is part of the opera. Handel preferred to write for higher voices. In his day, he used castrati for many roles. And now we have a crop of countertenors to take on those higher male parts. This time Whyte sang the man’s role in her lush bell-like soprano. Whyte performed a man’s role in OrpheusPDX’s The Royal Shepherd a year ago, and she didn’t blink an eye over wearing the pants in that part or in this one. Usually the mezzo does the pants role, but soprano Whyte has the heft in her voice to pull it off. And she must have a thing for shepherds.
Polyphemus’ character is based on Cyclops, the one-eyed monster who simply cannot abide the loving, faithful, naive relationship between Acis and Galatea. Eventually he kills Acis, a mortal, with a rock, which hovers for a while, then lowers inch by inch from the ceiling. It’s a paper rock. I could have done without that paper rock and stuck with the metaphor, but seasoned opera-goers next to me thought it was a campy high point.
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Anyway, Galatea is devastated, turns Acis into a river, gaming the evil Polyphemus’ death-by-rock strategy so that she can love Acis forever. In frustration and despair, Polyphemus rips off his white wig, and reveals a lush head of brown hair. Was he changing, seeing that he couldn’t break up a faithful romance? Was he morphing into a more hopeful younger man who could accept romantic love, even if he wasn’t the lover? Maybe. Myths are myths, and opera does put forth unpredictable expressions of passion and its denouement.
Stage director Rader-Shieber said it best in the program notes:
Acis and Galatea exist in a pastoral world, guided by passionate love and a joyful embrace of nature. They eschew any attempt to see past their charming cocoon of love and find any intrusion a shame and a bother. Meanwhile, Polyphemus inhabits a scientific realm, where he struggles with an inability to express, process, or even understand his emotions. For him, nature exists to be analyzed, controlled, and stored away for future use. When these two worlds meet, sparks fly, tempers flare (in both directions!), and ultimately, tragic consequences follow. But out of the saddest of events, comes the very beginning of a new understanding. There is something stunningly fresh about this jewel of a Handel opera, and its unresolved and forward-looking blessing of an ending.
And here’s a word about the singing, which involved plenty of decoration, repetition and range. All three singers’ voices could ascend high or dip low. Williams, who is handsome and tall, reached high into the treble clef and deep into the bass clef, though his official range is bass-baritone. Already capturing top-dog notice, he is charting a path to continued stardom if he keeps up this kind of performance.
Penn and Whyte had wide ranges as well, and Whyte sang an aria while splayed on the floor. She noted in a question-and-answer post-opera period that she likes that prone position, because she gets support from the floor. Another thing: Because Handel’s opera is so repetitive, if you missed the line the first time, it will come right back at you, usually with some gorgeous vocal decoration.
As artistic director and company founder, and onetime director of Portland Opera, Mattaliano knows how to pick a provocative, tuneful opera that we haven’t heard over and over, and one that’s usually delightfully and strategically short. He is a genius at nailing the best voices for the parts, and hiring creative directors, conductors and designers for the two-opera August season (The Rose Elf will be staged Aug. 17 and 18). The operas are performed in Portland State University’s Lincoln Hall, with a reputation for the best acoustics in which to listen to Portland music. So, unless we’re longing for the blockbuster biggies like La Traviata or Madame Butterfly, what more could we want?
OrpheusPDX stages an oldie-goldie in the first part of August (L’Orfeo and Mozart’s The Royal Shepherd were the earlier-era pieces in the first two seasons) followed by a contemporary opera (The Fall of the House of Usher and Dark Sisters were earlier years’ operas). The format has worked beautifully, though we could use more!
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