A season of Handel operas, part 3: Giulio Cesare

César remet Cléopâtre sur le trône d'Egypte [Caesar offers Cleopatra the throne of Egypt], by Pierre de Cortone (Pietro da Cortona), ca. 1637. Image source: Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Giulio Cesare (1724). Christophe Dumaux (Giulio Cesare), Louise Alder (Cleopatra), Beth Taylor (Cornelia), Paula Murrihy (Sesto), John Holiday (Tolomeo), Morgan Pearse (Achilla). The English Concert, Harry Bicket, conductor. Produced by Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, CA, 27 April 2025.

In recent posts on Handel, the music I've focused on was produced at moments of crisis—or at least significant upheaval—in his musical life: Acis and Galatea (1718) was composed at a time when feuding royals almost ended the viability of Italian opera in London; Messiah (1742) after the failure of his final opera, when he made a season-long relocation to Dublin to regroup; and Alceste (1750) for a masque whose production was abruptly cancelled, leaving the music in limbo.

But in 1724 when the 38-year-old Handel composed Giulio Cesare (Julius Caesar), he was at a peak of his artistic resources and musical inspiration. He had gathered superb artists into the Royal Academy of Music, his five-year-old opera company.

Francesco Bernardi, detto il Senesino, engraved by Elisha Kirkall after Joseph Goupy, 1727. Image source: National Portrait Gallery, London

The alto castrato Francesco Bernardi ("Senesino") joined the Academy in 1720. One of the greatest singers in the world, he would be surpassed only by Farinelli. He would create 17 roles in Handel operas, including the title roles in Floridante (1721), Ottone (1723),and Orlando (1733), as well as Andronico in Tamerlano (1724) and Bertarido in Rodelinda (1725). Of course, he sang the title role in Giulio Cesare.

In Cesare's Act I aria "Va tacito e nascosto" (Silently and stealthily), he recognizes that despite the Egyptian ruler Tolomeo's wish to appear as his ally, he is plotting to kill him; the aria compares Tolomeo to a hunter quietly stalking his prey. The aria as performed by Sarah Connolly (with Christophe Dumaux as Tolomeo and Christopher Maltman as Achilla) in the David McVicar production at Glyndebourne in 2005, accompanied by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by William Christie:

https://youtu.be/fieBT98DCLc

Va tacito e nascosto, Quand' avido è di preda, L'asuto Cacciator. Così chi è al mal disposto, Non brama, ch' alcun veda L'inganno del suo Cor.

As crafty Huntsmen In Pursuit of Prey, Unseen, and hushed in silence, stalk along: So those whom Malice prompts to base Designs, Conceal from every Eye, Their dark Intent. [1]

Francesca Cuzzoni onstage in Handel's Ottone, Flavio, or Giulio Cesare (1723-24). Image source: National Portrait Gallery, London.

The soprano Francesca Cuzzoni made her debut with the Royal Academy in 1723 and stayed for six seasons. She sang in every opera produced by the Academy during that time, creating the roles of Teofane (Ottone), Asteria (Tamerlano), and the title role in Rodelinda. She sang the role of Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare.

In Cleopatra's Act II aria "V'adoro, pupille" (Your charming eyes), she daringly declares her love for Cesare—but in disguise as the handmaiden "Lydia," so that she can protect herself in case Cesare doesn't return her feelings. (Whether at this stage those feelings are "love, lust, or just mutual ambition," as the Glyndebourne Encore website has it, remains to be seen.) The aria as performed by Magdalena Kožená (with Marijana Mijanovic as Cesare) accompanied by Les Musiciens du Louvre conducted by Marc Minkowski:

https://youtu.be/m-U92nkrEzM

V’adoro, pupille, saette d’amore, le vostre faville son grate nel sen. Pietose vi brama il mesto mio core, ch'ognora vi chiama l’amato suo ben.

Your charming Eyes My ravish'd Soul adores, The thrilling Pain My Heart with Pleasure bears. When you with Pity look, My Sorrows cease; For you alone Can heal the Wounds you gave.

Caricature of Margherita Durastanti by Antonio Zanetti, date unknown (possibly ca. 1709). Image source: Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venezia

The mezzo-soprano Margherita Durastanti was recruited by Handel for the Academy in 1720. She had known Handel in Italy, where he had traveled as a 21-year-old in 1706 (she was perhaps two or three years older than the composer). In Rome, Durastanti created the role of Mary Magdalene in La resurrezione (The Resurrection, 1708), and, in Venice, the title role in Agrippina (1709). She made her London debut in the male title role of Radamisto (1720), the first opera produced by the Academy. In Giulio Cesare she appeared as Sesto, the son of the murdered Roman general (and Cesare's opponent) Pompey.

In the Act I aria "Cara speme" (Dearest hope), Sesto begins to hope that he may be able to revenge the murder of his father. The aria as performed by Lorraine Hunt, accompanied by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra conducted by Nicholas McGegan:

https://youtu.be/ldEsBUzHZhE

Cara speme, questo core Tu cominci a lusingar; Par ch'il Ciel presti favore I miei torti a vendicar.

Dearest Hope, you now begin To soothe my troubled Breast; And Heaven at length propitious seems, The injured to retrieve.

Anastasia Robinson, engraved by John Faber Jr. after John Vanderbank, 1723. Image source: National Portrait Gallery, London

The contralto Anastasia Robinson had sung with Handel's opera company from 1714 to 1717. Her voice, originally a soprano judging by the music written for her, had deepened over the years. As I wrote in a previous post, "she created the role of Oriana, the heroine held captive by the sorceress Melissa, in Amadigi di Gaula (1715), and also appeared as Almirena, the heroine held captive by the sorceress Armida, in revivals of Rinaldo. She would sing with the Royal Academy from its first production, Radamisto, in which she created the role of Radamisto's wife Zenobia, the heroine held captive by the tyrant Tiridate, through Giulio Cesare, in which she created the role of Pompey's widow Cornelia, the heroine held captive by the tyrant Tolomeo." After the 1724 season, she retired from the stage to become Lady Peterborough.

In the Act I aria "Priva son d'ogni conforto" (Deprived of all comfort), Cornelia sings the first of several laments for the loss of her husband, murdered on the orders of Tolomeo. She is also sorrowing at her own situation: Tolomeo's prisoner, she is subject to his plans to forcibly marry her. Refusing to marry her husband's murderer would endanger her son, Sesto. The aria as performed by Beth Taylor in the David McVicar Glyndebourne production in 2024, accompanied by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by Lawrence Cummings:

https://youtu.be/t2le5Y2N_58?t=6

Priva son d'ogni conforto, e pur speme di morire per me misera non v'è. Il mio cor, da pene assorto, è già stanco di soffrir e morir si niega a me.

In vain, alas! depriv'd of Comfort, I hope Relief from Death. My Heart, oppress'd with Sorrow, pants with painful Weight, yet I am deny'd the Quiet of the Grave.

Three members of the cast in the semi-staged, concert-dress performance of Giulio Cesare brought to Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley on Sunday 27 April had appeared in McVicar's production at Glyndebourne: Louise Alder (Cleopatra, 2024), Beth Taylor (Cornelia, 2024), and Christophe Dumaux (here, Cesare; at Glyndebourne, Tolomeo in 2005, 2009, and 2018). As this cast suggests, the singing was at a high level, as was the playing of The English Concert under the experienced direction of conductor Harry Bicket.

Dumaux's countertenor has a bit of an edge. As Tolomeo at Glyndebourne, it suggested petulance and volatility; as Cesare in Berkeley, he deployed it to signal the character's martial command and firmness of purpose. Alder has a bright soprano; as Cleopatra she convincingly handled both the role's kittenish coloratura in the early scenes, and the emergence of deep emotion as the tide seems to turn against her and Cesare later in the opera. Beth Taylor's contralto, impressive as it is in the Glyndebourne clip above, is even richer in person.

In addition to the Glyndebourne veterans, in the remaining major roles the cast included Paula Murrihy as Sesto, countertenor John Holiday as Tolomeo, and baritone Morgan Pearse as Tolomeo's general Achilla. Murrihy's duet with Taylor at the close of the first act, "Son nata a lagrimar" (I was born to weep), was both ravishing and heart-wrenching.

Unfortunately the uncredited stage direction (perhaps by artistic director Bicket?) undermined the characters at almost every turn. Murrihy's Sesto is a case in point; for the first time I found the character's teenaged vacillation ultimately to induce eye rolls rather than emotional engagement. Holiday's Tolomeo lacked a sense of menace, and did not seem a credible threat to the imposing Cesare of Dumaux. The impact of Cleopatra's "V'adoro, pupille" was lessened by having Alder begin it from behind the orchestra, while Cesare sat in the front row of the audience; it was difficult to imagine him being overwhelmed by "Lydia's" beauty and sensuality at such a distance. When Pearse's Achilla threatened Cornelia, Taylor was directed to cower and grimace in fear, which diminished our sense of her character's nobility and regal dignity. And when Cesare is trapped by Tolomeo's henchmen in the palace, all of the other singers lined up at the back of the stage to sing the chorus "Mora, mora, Cesare mora!" (Death to Caesar!). While having named characters sing as a chorus in his operas was Handel's practice, in this scene the composer clearly expected them to sing unseen from the wings. Having all the singers troop out onstage made it seem as though each of their characters was calling for Cesare's death, which in the case of his allies such as Nireno (Meili Li), Cornelia and Sesto, made no sense at all.

Finally, deaths of characters in Baroque opera generally occur between scenes and offstage, and are reported afterwards to the other characters by a witness. In Giulio Cesare, Handel defied that convention by including not just one, but two onstage death scenes. In the Berkeley performance, in both cases the deaths took place downstage center, leaving the singers no alternative when the scene concluded but to sheepishly stand back up and walk offstage (and on Zellerbach's broad stage, that's a long walk). They returned, of course, for the final chorus, a moment that McVicar's Glyndebourne production handles much more cleverly.

Handel's superb music and the excellent vocal and instrumental performances overcame the distractions of the poor direction. However, for their next semi-staged opera production I hope that The English Concert hires a dedicated director to ensure that the singers' actions support, rather than undercut, their characters and the story.

Other posts in this series:

• A season of Handel operas, part 4: Ariodante
• A season of Handel operas, part 2: Alceste
• A season of Handel operas, part 1: Acis and Galatea

And a bonus post:

• Every Valley: Handel's Messiah

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1. Aria translations in this post are from the 1724 libretto by Nicola Haym.

A season of Handel operas, part 2: Alceste

La mort d'Alceste, ou l'Héroïsme de l'amour conjugal [The death of Alcestis] (detail) by Jean-François Pierre Peyron, 1785. Image credit: Louvre, Paris. Image source: Speakerty

Alceste (1750). Lauren Snouffer (Calliope), Aaron Sheehan (Apollo), with Leandra Ramm (soloist) and Jeffrey Fields (Charon). Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale, Peter Whelan, conductor. Herbst Theater, San Francisco, 7 March 2025.

When Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra announced that Handel's Alceste would be performed this spring, I was a little puzzled. I was familiar with two other operas based on Euripides' tragedy: Lully's of 1694, with a libretto by Philippe Quinault, and Gluck's of 1767, with a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. But what was this mystery work by Handel, and why had I never heard of it?

The work did not appear in any of the opera reference works on my shelves, nor in the table of contents of Winton Dean's definitive Handel's Dramatic Oratorios and Masques (Oxford, 1959). Checking Dean's chapter on The Choice of Hercules (1751), though, I soon learned the reason that Alceste is not better known: it had never been performed in Handel's lifetime, and most of the music had been repurposed for The Choice of Hercules.

George Frideric Handel by Thomas Hudson, 1749–1750. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Handel had composed the music as interludes for a play by the poet and novelist Tobias Smollett based on Euripides' Alcestis. Following the conventions of masques such as Henry Purcell's King Arthur (1691) and The Fairy Queen (1692), none of the main characters of Smollett's play—King Admetus, who has been summoned by Death; Alcestis, his devoted wife who chooses to die in his place; and Hercules, the hero who rescues her from the underworld and restores her to life and to her husband—have singing roles in Handel's work. Instead, Alceste features the muse Calliope, the god Apollo, and the Stygian ferryman Charon, who comment on the play's action. The word book for Handel's interludes was not written by Smollett, but most likely by Thomas Morell, the librettist for several of Handel's earlier and later oratorios.

The masque was commissioned by John Rich, who had produced The Beggar's Opera (1728), John Gay's ballad opera satirizing his former collaborator Handel (see Part 1 on Acis and Galatea). However, shortly after the wildly successful run of The Beggar's Opera, Rich built the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, where Handel's later operas and many of his oratorios were first publicly performed; Handel apparently bore no grudge.

John Rich, attributed to William Hogarth, ca. 1755–1761. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

The play and music were ready by early January 1750, but the masque was never performed: Rich cancelled the production. According to notes made by Morell, Rich made this decision because the music was "too good [i.e., difficult] for [his] Performers." This is unlikely to be the true explanation. The singers included the soprano Cecilia Young (Mrs. Thomas Arne), her sister, the contralto Esther Young, tenor Thomas Lowe and bass Gustavus Waltz, all experienced singers who performed in other Handel works. More likely, the expense of mounting a full-length play together with musical interludes and dances proved too great, and Rich decided to cut his losses.

As a result, Alceste is little known and rarely performed or recorded. Which is a shame, because it contains some very appealing music. Here is Calliope's "Gentle Morpheus, son of night," performed by soprano Lucy Crowe with the Early Opera Company conducted by Christian Curnyn:

https://youtu.be/NYZCPr9bM-A

Gentle Morpheus, son of night, Hither speed thy airy flight! And his weary senses steep In the balmy dew of sleep. That when bright Aurora's beams Glad the world with golden streams, He, like Phoebus, blithe and gay, May re-taste the healthful day.

The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra performance made a strong case for the viability of Alceste in concert. It has some rousing choral numbers and virtuoso showcases for the soloists. Lauren Snouffer brought a bright soprano and fluency in coloratura to the role of Calliope, and the ever-reliable Aaron Sheehan his flexible and pleasing tenor to the role of Apollo. 

The Philharmonia Chorale directed by Valérie Sainte-Agathe made a substantial contribution to the success of the performance, not only with its usual superb unison and intonation, but also by supplying two soloists: the mezzo-soprano Leandra Ramm for the air "Triumph, Hymen, in the pair," and the baritone Jeffrey Fields in Charon's "Ye fleeting shades, I come / To fix your final doom" (which, although lyrically very different, bears a passing musical resemblance to Polyphemus' "Ruddier than the cherry" from Acis and Galatea). 

Guest conductor Peter Whelan led an energetic and cohesive performance of Alceste and the opening Concerto Grosso in G major Op. 6 No. 1. On top of flawlessly coordinating soloists, orchestra and chorus, he was a charming host for the evening. The PBO is currently searching for a music director to replace Richard Egarr, who resigned last June after just four seasons (his predecessor, Nicholas McGegan, spent 35 years in the role). On the evidence of Whelan's audition, he made a strong case not only for Alceste but for his candidacy.

Next time: Giulio Cesare performed by The English Concert

Last time: Acis and Galatea performed by American Bach Soloists

A season of Handel operas, part 1: Acis and Galatea

Polyphème surprenant Acis et Galatée (Polyphemus surprising Acis and Galatea) [detail] by Auguste Ottin, 1863. Fontaine Médicis, Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris. Image credit: Daniel Stockman, CC BY-SA 2.0. Image source: Wikimedia Commons.

This year marks the 340th anniversary of Handel's birth. Either by plan or coincidence, in addition to the annual Messiah concerts, welcome as they are, this season has featured some non-perennial Handel vocal works. Over the next several posts I will be covering recent concert performances of three Handel operas, starting with:

Acis and Galatea (1718/1739). Nola Richardson (Galatea), James Reese (Acis), Douglas Ray Williams (Polyphemus), Michael Jankosky (Damon), Agnes Vojtkó (Corydon). American Bach Soloists, Jeffrey Thomas, artistic director and conductor. St Mark's Lutheran Church, San Francisco, 23 February 2025.

In Every Valley: Handel's Messiah, I wrote about how Handel's career composing and staging Italian operas in London came to an end after 30 years. It had begun in 1711 with Rinaldo and had reached several artistic peaks between the mid-1720s and the mid-1730s. But by the end of the 1730s audiences and financial support were dwindling, and with the failure of Deidamia in 1741, Handel finally had to accept that he could no longer continue to produce opera seria.

George Frideric Handel, attributed to Balthasar Denner, 1726–1728. Image source: National Portrait Gallery NPG 1976

But his career writing Italian opera had almost ended 25 years earlier, in 1717, thanks to an argument within the royal family. Had Handel stopped writing Italian opera then, today we would not have many of his greatest masterpieces; I'll be discussing one of them, Giulio Cesare (1724), as the third performance covered in this post series.

Opera was (and is) extraordinarily expensive, and between 1714 and 1717 the Italian opera company in London flourished under the joint patronage of King George I and his son George Augustus, the Prince of Wales. But in 1717, tensions mounted between father and son. An opposition faction began to form around the Prince of Wales, who, in comparison to his father, was relatively popular. Joint patronage of the opera ceased.

Handel was placed in a delicate position. He relied on George I's patronage and supplied music for court and state occasions; that summer he had written the Water Music for a river excursion by the king. At the same time, he could not afford to alienate the Prince of Wales, who was roughly Handel's age and would one day be king. Rather than attending either the king's or the prince's court, by early August 1717 Handel was staying at Cannons, an estate outside London owned by James Brydges, Baron (later Duke of) Chandos.

The Right Hon[oura]ble. James, Earl of Carnarvon, Viscount Chandos of Wilton in Herefordshire, Lord Chandos of Sudley in Glocestershire & Governor of ye Turky Company [i.e., the Levant Company]. Mezzotint by John Simon, published by John Smith, after a Michael Dahl portrait of 1719. National Portrait Gallery NPG D19048

Brydges had three major advantages: he was not active politically, and so associating with him would not offend either king or prince; he was an enthusiastic arts patron, not only of Handel but of the writers John Arbuthnot, John Gay, John Hughes and Alexander Pope; and he had a household musical establishment consisting of about a dozen musicians and four to six male singers (augmented with additional performers for special occasions).

No payments are recorded to Handel in the existing household accounts, and Brydges already had a Master of Music, Johann Pepusch. In his biography of Handel, Donald Burrows suggests that he stayed at Cannons "possibly. . .as an honoured guest rather than as a 'serving musician.'" [1] Even though Handel was a guest, composing and performing were undoubtedly a part of the reciprocal guest-host relationship: more than a dozen new works were first performed at Cannons while he was in residence.

Unknown man, formerly identified as John Gay, attributed to Sir Godfrey Kneller, Baronet, before 1723(?). Image source: National Portrait Gallery NPG 622

The poets sharing Brydges' patronage were strong opponents of Italian opera, the genre that had brought Handel to London. (Gay and Pepusch would go on a decade later to savagely satirize Italian opera in The Beggar's Opera (1728), for which some of Handel's music was borrowed.) Ever adaptable, all the vocal works Handel composed at Cannons had English words: eleven sacred anthems drawn from the Book of Common Prayer (1662) and Nicholas Brady and Nahum Tate's New Version of the Psalms (1696); the oratorio Esther (1718) to a libretto likely by Arbuthnot and Pope; and the pastoral opera Acis and Galatea (1718) to a libretto primarily by Gay with additions by Pope and Hughes, adapted from the text of John Dryden's The Story of Acis, Polyphemus and Galatea (1717).

Gay's text for Acis and Galatea draws on Ovid's Metamorphoses for its swiftly-moving tragedy: the shepherd Acis and the nymph Galatea love one another, but the jealous Cyclops Polyphemus kills Acis by crushing him with a boulder.

"Help, Galatea, help, ye parent gods, / And take me dying to your deep abodes." Acis and Galatea, etching and engraving by William Dean Taylor after Richard Cook, c. 1814–1822. Image source: Sanders of Oxford Antique Prints & Maps

The sorrowing Galatea turns Acis' blood into a "gentle murm'ring stream," and Acis himself into its god.

Handel filled the work with beautiful pastoral melodies, and the words "pleasure," "delight," "desire," and "love" recur throughout—as in Acis' Act I air "Love in her eyes sits playing," performed by Paul Agnew accompanied by Les Arts Florissants conducted by William Christie:

https://youtu.be/pF615Bo5I0I

But Handel also effectively dramatized the moments of conflict. In an extraordinary trio in Act II, Polyphemus violently interrupts Acis and Galatea's love duet "The flocks shall leave the mountains" with interjections of his jealousy and anger: "Torture! Fury! Rage! Despair! I cannot, cannot bear!" The excerpt below is from the brilliant Boston Early Music Festival production with Aaron Sheehan as Acis/Lord Chandos, Teresa Wakim as Galatea/Lady Chandos, and Douglas Williams as Polyphemus/Alexander Pope:

https://youtu.be/uFID8HjhQw4

The cast of the 1718 version requires only five soloists (in 1739 Handel revised the work to reduce the number of soloists to four). The part of Galatea was sung by a soprano hired for the occasion, since Brydges' regular group of singers included no women. Burrows makes the case that the soprano who sang in the first performance was probably Margherita de l'Epine, who had performed in three of Handel's London operas and who married Pepusch, Brydges' Master of Music, around 1718.

Galatea is given some of Handel's loveliest music, as in the air "Heart, the seat of soft delight," here performed by Teresa Wakim accompanied by the Boston Early Music Festival Vocal & Chamber Ensembles directed by Paul O'Dette and Stephen Stubbs:

https://youtu.be/sATWpLlyxvw

The modest forces required to perform Acis and Galatea, its compact story (about 90 minutes from start to finish), and the beauty of its music ensured the work's continued popularity. It became the most-performed of Handel's works during his lifetime, and it is still regularly staged (we've seen it four times in the past two decades).

Polyphème surprenant Acis et Galatée (Polyphemus surprising Acis and Galatea) by Auguste Ottin, 1863. Fontaine Médicis, Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris. Image source: Pinterest

The concert performance of Acis and Galatea that we attended in San Francisco fully brought out the delightful qualities of its music. As is common practice, the version Jeffrey Thomas presented with American Bach Soloists was a combination of elements from the 1718 version and Handel's 1739 and 1742 revisions. Although the version we heard did not exactly correspond to what any 18th-century audience would have heard—it probably came closest to the version heard in 1742 as a part of Handel's Dublin season—Handel himself frequently altered his works to match the forces at his disposal and, no doubt, his artistic preferences.

As in 1739, the work was divided into two acts, rather than being presented in six continuous scenes as it was originally. As in 1739, Acis' fellow shepherd Damon (Michael Jankosky) also sang the air originally given to the shepherd Corydon, "Would you gain the tender creature," though fortunately Damon remained a tenor (1718) instead of becoming a boy soprano (1739). 

"Would you gain the tender creature" performed by Zachary Wilder, accompanied by the Boston Early Music Festival players:

https://youtu.be/zhBygMHmWic

As in 1739, the part of Corydon was cast with a female alto (Agnes Vojtkó) who, alas, only sings in the choruses. And as in 1739, a chorus was appended to Acis and Galatea's duet "Happy we" at the end of the first part.

However, elements of the original 1718 version were also retained. In Act II the air "Cease, beauty, to be suing" by Polyphemus, and the choral part of Galatea's "Must I my Acis still bemoan," were performed (they were cut in 1739). And the ABS orchestra did not include violas, which were only added to the score in 1739. [2]

Acis was ardently sung by tenor James Reese, while his love-rival Polyphemus was commandingly performed by bass-baritone Douglas Ray Williams. Williams is a veteran in the role: he sang it in the Acis and Galatea we saw at the Boston Early Music Festival in 2011, and in the danced Mark Morris version in 2014.

The great revelation for us was soprano Nola Richardson, who sang Galatea with a gorgeous timbre, accuracy of intonation, and in her bird-imitation airs "Hush, ye pretty warbling quire" and "As when the dove laments her love," fleetness of coloratura. Jeffrey Thomas, a former singer himself, always finds excellent vocalists, and we will be watching for Richardson's future appearances in the Bay Area and elsewhere.

Nola Richardson, soprano. Image credit: Suzanne Vinnik. Image source: Schwalbe and Partners

The scholar and critic Stanley Sadie wrote that "Acis and Galatea represents the high point of pastoral opera in England, indeed anywhere," and praised "the elegance and the sensual force of Handel's music in the first act and the elegiac power of that in the second." [3] The ABS concert performance fully confirmed those views.

Next time: Alceste (1750)

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1. Donald Burrows, The Master Musicians: Handel, Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 81. 
2. Differences between the 1718, 1732, 1739 and 1742 versions are discussed in detail in Peter Holman, "The 1739 Acis and Galatea," The Handel Friends, 1 May 2016.
3. Stanley Sadie, "Acis and Galatea," in The Grove Book of Operas, Second Edition, edited by Stanley Sadie, revised edition edited by Laura Macy. Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 2.