Arts & Events

An Amazing Staging of Handel’s ACI, GALATEA E POLIFEMO

Reviewed by James Roy MacBean
Saturday January 25, 2020 - 08:52:00 PM

Imagine a Handel opera staged in such a way that the sexual politics of today’s Me Too movement against the sexual predations of powerful men are not only evoked, they also lead us to indict predatory men like Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, and Jeremy Epstein. This is exactly what happens in the current Philharmonia Baroque production of George Friedric Handel’s Italian opera Aci, Galatea e Polifimo, which runs from January 24 to February 1 at San Francisco’s ODC Theatre. The idea behind this amazing production began with countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and Brooklyn’s National Sawdust, an innovative arts institution in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. In 2017 they approached the Bay Area’s Philharmonia Baroque and proposed a collaboration to produce a Handel opera, written in Naples in 1708, about the mythical sex-triangle of Acis, Galatea, and the monstrous, one-eyed Cyclops, Polyphemus. Their collaboration bore fruit in the 2017 production of Aci, Galatea e Polifemo in Brooklyn, which drew rave reviews from New York critics. Now they have brought this same “radical production of a Handel rarity” to Bay Area audiences; and make no mistake about it, this show, as New York’s critics noted, “wrings every bit of unsettling darkness from this curious work.”  

Before the opening night performance of Aci, Galatea e Polifemo on Friday, January 24, I had never seen this opera. But I had seen, many years ago, at New York’s Symphony Space, the second version of this story treated by Handel, his English-language opera entitled Acis and Galatea. The two versions couldn’t be more different. In Handel’s later, 1718 version, Polyphemus is a comic caricature. But in the first version from 1708, Polyphemus, here Polifemo in Italian, is a dark, brooding, almost bestial character, obsessive in his desire for Galatea and prone to violent rages when she resists his advances. As staged by Christopher Alden, Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo is a harrowing dramatization of abusive male power exercised in brutal pursuit of a male’s sexual lusts. 

However, in a gender-bending move, this production of Aci, Galatea e Polifemo has the young lovers Acis and Galatea performed by members of the opposite sex. Galatea, the young woman, is played by countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, and Acis, the young man who loves Galatea, is played by soprano Lauren Snouffer. So here we have a man, Costanzo, playing a woman, Galatea, who loves a man, played by a woman. Interestingly, as a result we have an opera-drama in which gender hardly matters at all. Anyone can love anyone. One’s gender at birth does not necessarily limit one’s sexual preferences later in life.  

To go one giant step further, this production’s casting of African-American bass-baritone Davóne Tines as Polifemo greatly expands the examination of male sexual power to call into question both the Black male’s compensatory assertion of sexual power (as in Eldridge Cleaver’s experiences as a rapist), and white fantasies and fears regarding the sexual threat/lure posed by sexually assertive Black males. Amazingly, this production of Aci, Galatea e Polifemo manages to suggest all of these complicated social issues simply by adhering to the text and through a judicious but suggestive staging by Christopher Alden. 

Perhaps we should begin with the stage set. It is dominated by a bathtub set in an invitingly empty space amid tiled walls depicting nautical images of sailing ships, fish, birds, and sea monsters. Significantly, there is also an elaborate hanging chandelier to suggest wealth. We first see two characters come onstage wielding sponge-mops. They wear plastic gloves and hair-nets, and they are clad in drab uniforms that suggest they are sanitation workers or servants. To the music of Handel’s overture, they robotically sweep their sponge-mops back and forth over the floor. The only hint of their human feelings is a sudden, almost furtive kiss as they switch places in their work of sweeping. It’s as if the repetitive work dehumanises them to the point where they are zombies, and only a spark of love animates them. 

Soon we see that Polyphemus is their boss. Wearing only skivvies, Polyphemus steps into the bathtub and demands that they bathe and shave him. When the sponge wielded by Galatea ventures into Polyphemus’s genital area, his singing becomes excitedly and ecstatically falsetto. It is clear that he indulges his power over his servants to further his lustful ambitions. 

But the matter of sexual attraction is problematised in this production, for at times it is suggested that not withstanding the fidelity that unites these young lovers, one or both of them might momentarily be sexually attracted to Polyphemus. Thus, the problematic threat/lure of Black male sexuality is effectively brought into play, much as it is, by the way, in Verdi’s Otello, based on Shakespeare.  

More disturbing, however, is the suggestion that male predation can lead the female recipient of this aggression to blame herself for whatever ensues. Here, Anthony Roth Costanzo’s Galatea later employs the razor initially used to shave Polyphemus now in order to cut and mutilate her/his self. Indeed, this act of self-mutilation is staged in such a way that we cannot see or know exactly what is happening, except that it seems to be extremely painful for the person now wielding the razor. At this point, I was reminded of the news reporting actress Anabella Sciorra’s testimony in the Harvey Weinstein trial that she was so traumatised by Weinstein’s sexual abuse against her that she internalised the guilt and began cutting herself as punishment.  

Towards the end of Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifermo, there is a duet that parodies the famous closing , highly erotic, duet between Nero and Poppea in Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea. Here, by contrast, the erotic element is one-sided, entirely on the male side with Polyphemus, while the female Galatea resists it completely. In a rage, Polyphemus then kills Acis and taunts Galatea for causing her lover’s death. But nature intervenes, and the dead Acis is transformed into a river that flows into Galatea’s sea, uniting this couple forever, as the opera ends. 

Vocally, Davóne Tines was outstanding as Polifemo. His robust, ultra-masculine bass-baritone captured the power of this bestial Polyphemus, son of Poseidon. Moreover, his commanding physical presence emphasised the power inherent in male physicality. Then too, Tines was capable at significant moments in this drama of singing in a wonderfully emotive falsetto voice that conveyed layer upon layer of emotional depth. As Acis, soprano Lauren Snouffer was superb. Vocally, she was luminous. In the gender-bending role of Galatea, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo used his unconventional vocal powers to suggest all kinds of mixed gender possibilities, including the full gamut of LGBTQ sexual identities. Philharmonia Baroque’s music director Nicholas McGegan conducted the chamber ensemble from the harpsichord. 

Not to be forgotten are the contributions of Mark Grey for sound and video effects, Seth Reiser for lighting and set design, and Terese Wadden for costume design. Cath Brittan was producer and production director. Christopher Alden was responsible for the overall stage direction of this amazing Aci, Galatea e Polifemo of Handel. This production continues at ODC Theatre in San Francisco through February 1. Don’t miss it!