How one must fear the love of a giant! Alas, the beautiful Galatea only has eyes for the handsome young shepherd Aci, and their joyous embraces are too inebriating for such delicate and vulnerable flesh. Woe unto them! Because the rage of the Cyclops Polifemo, mad with jealousy, culminates in violence and everything ends in a bloodbath. He detaches a boulder from Mt. Aetna with which he crushes Aci. Galatea calls upon her father Neptune to transform her lover into a river, and she joins him to unite with her love in the sea.

This ‘‘dramatic cantata” by the young Händel decidedly has everything it takes to move us: the beauty of the music, with its airs characteristic of Italian Baroque refinement, brings us so close to the passion of this mythic love that we still find it current today. We get but a glimpse of the magnificent complaint of Aci, Galatea and Polifemo in the opera of the same name, written by the composer a year later, in 1731.

To bring this rare work to the stage, Emmanuelle Haïm and Le Concert d’Astrée join talents with contralto Delphine Galou and Laurent Naouri (recently heard in Lille with Creon in Medea).

After a cancelation by Sonya Yoncheva, the role Aci will be sing by Lydia Teuscher.

Aci, Galatea e Polifemo (HWV 72) by Georg Friedrich Haendel

With
Aci Lydia Teuscher
Galatea Delphine Galou
Polifemo Laurent Naouri

Le Concert d’Astrée
Conductor Emmanuelle Haïm

After a cancelation by Sonya Yoncheva, the role Aci will be sing by Lydia Teuscher.