Handel: Acis and Galatea (complete opera)
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GEORG FRIDERIC HANDEL
Handel: Acis and Galatea (complete opera)
Lucy Crowe / Benjamin Hulett / Alan Clayton / Early Opera Company, Christian Curnyn
[ Chandos Chaconne SACD / 2 Hybrid SACD ]
Release Date: Sunday 10 March 2019
This item is currently out of stock. It may take 6 or more weeks to obtain from when you place your order as this is a specialist product.
The award-winning Early Opera Company under the direction of founder Christian Curnyn celebrates the 300th anniversary of the premiere of one of Handel's most sublime creations: Acis and Galatea.
This unique interpretation is performed as Handel himself specified in the manuscript: supported by fourteen period instruments, the outstanding cast of singers takes on the solo parts as well as the magnificent choruses. This is Handel writing at his highest levels of intimacy and intensity; the music superbly supports the libretto's evocative portrayal of the story, simultaneously restrained, economical, and deeply moving.
It is exquisite music, and has been the Early Opera Company's most frequently requested and played performance over the last few years. With the addition of Baroque experts Lucy Crowe and Benjamin Hulett, previously featured on the award winning Chandos recording of Serse, this album in surround sound is not only an extraordinary achievement for the company but a must-have for all early music lovers.
"Curnyn has hit on a secret that eluded previous interpreters of this work: it was conceived specifically to showcase the beauty of the English language…Channelling Handel's enthusiasm, Curnyn and his fellow artists forge a musical rhetoric powered by native sonorities…Lucy Crowe as Galatea excels especially in turning words, and word-pictures, into sound…This is, altogether, a benchmark that will be hard to beat." BBC Music Magazine Awards 2019 Winner - Opera
"The recording at St Jude-on-the-hill is lovely and spacious. Producer Rachel Smith and engineers Jonathan Cooper and Rosanna Fish are to be congratulated." (MusicWeb)
"Secure of ripe, rounded tone and exemplary as to diction, Davies avoids the comic bluster that so often mars the role [of Polyphemus]…Crowe's Galatea is also appealing, her singing bright and characterful, attaining tragic dignity after the death of Acis…Clayton is an admirably ardent and virile Acis…The orchestral playing is excellent, with particular plaudits going to the oboists." Opera
"Crowe is predictably delicious as Galatea...She is well partnered by Allan Clayton's heroic Acis...Benjamin Hulett's Damon supplies the set's most exquisite singing in Consider, Fond Shepherd...A must-have for Handelians." (Sunday Times)
