The Salt Spring Baroque Music Society is thrilled to announce its debut baroque opera production: George Frideric Handel's timeless masterpiece, Acis and Galatea, led by the renowned Spanish violinist and conductor Enrique Gómez-Cabrero Fernández, Director of the Handel Opera Academy.

Experience the vibrant sounds of the 18th century as a full baroque orchestra performs on period instruments. Including vocal soloists alongside a choir comprised of many talented Salt Spring Islanders, this production promises an immersive afternoon of music that will enchant seasoned opera lovers and newcomers alike.

A pastoral tale of passion and tragedy:
Drawn from the vivid pages of Ovid's Metamorphoses, this 1718 English-language gem tells a haunting story of "doomed love". The opera follows the romance between the nymph Galatea and the shepherd Acis, a bond shattered by the jealous giant Polyphemus. Handel masterfully weaves a tapestry of sensuality, wit, and pastoral tragedy that remains as poignant today as it was three centuries ago.
Acis and Galatea is Handel's only dramatic work that has never left the repertoire. During Handel's lifetime, it received more performances (about 70) than any of his other works. Called variously a masque, an oratorio, and an "English pastoral opera" with music "after the Italian manner," its popularity in Handel's time and ever since is not difficult to understand: it has the youthful lightness and freshness that we hear in his earlier Italian works, it is short enough that it can fit different kinds of programs — and it is in English. It is, in fact, his earliest dramatic work in English, coming just before a great run of Italian operas and long before his final shift into writing English oratorios.

Tickets are $30 and are available at saltspringbaroque.com, artspring.ca and at the door.