ACIS AND GALATEA - Georg Friedrich Handel

Direction notes

the New York Times 25/10/ 2011

..It was given a fine performance by Western soloists and the excellent Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, artfully led from the harpsichord by Aaron Carpenè. Choristers playing badminton and jumping rope helped Stefano Vizioli’s staging capture the work’s idyllic pastoral ambiance, as did projections by Lorenzo Cutùli underscoring the text’s frequent references to nature. It proved a fine setting for the blossoming romance of the young title characters. “Happy, happy,” they sing in a delightful, almost giddy duet.

Their happiness is soon shattered by the giant Polyphemus, but here even he participated in some of the bucolic fun, as Galatea flirted with him and Acis treated him to modern amenities, like underarm spray, drawn from a trunk. All quite amusing.

George Loomis

OPERA

Indeed, this was very much the aim of the Italian director Stefano Vizioli, whose feeling for Baroque meaning and gesture showed in a fluid integration of every component. An often stark stage was beautifully framed, not least by a lavish, flower-embossed curtain suggesting a rather rich and exotic Arcadia... and the general look was witty and playful.
JOHN ALLISON

Details about Teatro don Pedro di Macao

Filipa Galvão

Filipa Galvao FilipaG@icm.gov.mo

Instituto Cultural do Governo da RAEM

Departamento de Acção Cultural

Festival Internacional de Música de Macau e Festival de Artes de Macau

Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Macau SAR Government

Cultural Events Department

Macau International Music Festival and Macau Arts Festival

Praça do Tap Seac, Edf. do Instituto Cultural

Macau (China)

Tel:+853 83996629