Organization

London Handel Festival

Conductor

David Bates

Stage director

Andrew Staples

Singer

Countertenor

Anthony Gregory

Acis

Soprano

Madison Nonoa

Galatea

Tenor

James Way

First Damon

David Webb

Coridon

Lighting designer

William Reynolds

Acis and Galatea

London

United Kingdom

Public

Approved

Love, beauty and innocence are corrupted by lust, darkness and death.  Handel’s seemingly simple drama offers us a chilling warning about the transience of human happiness and the inevitable reality that faces us all.

The story is simple: girl loves boy, a rival appears who wants the girl, she refuses and in a rage, the rival kills the boy.  Within this fairytale, we find evidence of the darkness that underlies the principles by which we lead our modern lives. We can glimpse the implicit structures to which we owe our existence. “Survival of the fittest” the great principle of evolution, implies death for those not so strong. It implies that the desires and wishes of the strong outweigh the innocence and ideals of the weak.

We may imagine that we live in an evolved society where everyone is equal and all work together for the greater good.  But here we see that we are animals who respond to our basic needs. We have evolved to where we are now, by killing our rivals, dominating those beneath us and exercising our desires without concern for their consequences on others.

In this production we focus on this stark reality and set our story within the context of these themes.  Our world is suffering thanks to our evolved practices, which on the face of it seem to be for the benefit of the many, but are in fact for the good of the few and carry with them the consequences of deep harm and ultimately death.

English

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew