This opera, along with the second half of a double bill, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, turned into an evening of unmitigated triumph for the Waterperry Opera Festival. Acis and Galatea was updated in terms of both setting and background to the story and worked charmingly on every level. The double bill was presented in the amphitheatre of the Waterperry grounds, a place I had never visited before. It seemed to me to be a perfect setting for this kind of small-forces Baroque evening in every way both musically and dramatically.
The acoustic of this amphitheatre worked well. The 10-strong band, placed at the highest level of the space, and led sensitively by Michael Papadopoulos, was exemplary in its intonation, tempi and feeling throughout both works. The action was played out at the bottom of the amphitheatre on a smallish, flat stage area. The audience was therefore in ranks of semicircles around the action and there was clearly not a dud seat in the house for sight lines or acoustics, for visibility or sound.
The sensual elegance of the first part as well as the humour were fully on display and the second act, which becomes more plaintive and melancholy as the tragedy approaches, was captivating. Updated to what appeared to me to be something like the 1920s and set in a kind of artists’ community, the words as well as the music were projected clearly with no need for amplification, and the cast was consistently both musically and dramatically working as a strong ensemble throughout. Ellie Neate’s Galatea was an artist in this community and Thando Mjandana was her sweet-toned Acis. The roles of Polyphemus, played with both pathos and menace by Jerome Knox, and Damon, portrayed by Michael Bell, stood out as well; but everyone on that stage deserved complete praise. I liked the visual aspects of the story a lot, and the climax of the murder and its aftermath were staged with real flair. Using different levels available to them, the direction of Rebecca Melzer was strong.