Following a sell-out success at the Guinness Storehouse, Opera Theatre Company toured Northern Ireland with its most recent Handel production Acis and Galatea, the second installment in its Handel Trilogy 2009, commemorating the 250th anniversary of the great composer’s death

With a cast drawn from their Young Associate Artists’ Programme (YAAP), Opera Theatre Company delighted Northern Irish opera-goers, who enthusiastically embraced this performance both as an entertainment in its own right and as another stepping stone in the opera career path of young Irish singers, promising a healthy future for the artform.

Starting in Downpatrick on June 13th, more than 400 people throughout the north experienced a week of true love, murderous lust and divine metamorphosis, from the comfort of a theatre stall.

This production was directed by Belfast-born Annilese Miskimmon, who is also Artistic Director of Opera Theatre Company. She is currently working on two other productions for Opera Theatre Company – a revival of last year’s YAA production of Mozart’s Bastien & Bastienne , which will partner Acis & Galatea at Blackstairs Opera at the Castle, and a revival of 2007’s critically acclaimed Orlando, continuing our commemoration of Handel’s anniversary as well as representing Irish opera at The Buxton FestivalThe Buxton Festival.

Not only is 2009 the 250th anniversary of the death of Handel, with his close Dublin association, it is also the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Guinness Brewery. It was clever of Opera Theatre Company to open its spring-summer tour of Handel’s Acis and Galatea by members of its Young Artists' programme at that famous location (April 15). Some years ago Guinness spent €30 million on converting an old store-house into a huge visitor centre. A spectacular museum to the humble pint of stout, it is the most visited tourist attraction in Dublin today. Part of one floor was cleared to provide a performing space, continuing the company’s use of unusual locations, and it proved dramatically and acoustically satisfactory.

David Craig’s simple but effective, adaptable setting was based on Styrofoam mountain peaks. He dressed his singers in 18th-century-rustic style, and Kevin Treacy’s lighting added plenty of atmosphere. Annilese Miskimmon’s production emphasized a picture-book, pastoral mood, both witty and apt. Her six young singers had to undertake the choruses too: they were a bit stretched in the polyphonic “Wretched lovers”, but always keenly musical. Andrew Synnott directed his small Baroque band with vivacious style and achieved splendid singing. Dean Power proved an outstanding Acis, a charming swain who sang his music with notable assurance, while Nicola Mulligan was an equally fine singing-actor as Galatea: her words need a little more clarity but otherwise she is another fine talent to be watched. Gavan Ring sang Polyphemus with a stylish light baritone, while skilfully moving around inside a huge carnival puppet representing the evil Cyclops. Aoife O’Connell, Christina Whyte and Ciaran Kelly completed the excellent cast.

Ian Fox