L'Aci Operistico -- variazioni su un tema di Lulli

Speranza

The story of Acis and Galatea comes to us from Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

 Its principal characters—the shepherd Acis, the sea nymph Galatea, and the cyclops Polyphemus—are all involved in a love triangle.

Acis and Polyphemus are rivals who are in love with Galatea.

 She, in turn, is in love with Acis, yet is repulsed by Polyphemus.

The end of the story finds Polyphemus so angry with Acis that he kills him with a boulder.

But all is not lost because Acis is then turned into a river and, hence, immortalized.

Baroque composers were known to set the Acis and Galatea story in many individual ways.

Florence-born Giovanni Battista Lulli expanded the cast of characters and storyline in what was his last complete opera, finished only months before his death.

Today it is considered a masterpiece.

Antonio de Literes wrote his own version as a two act operetta in honor of King Philip V’s birthday.

It was very loved in its day.


By far, the most famous composition based on the story belongs to John Gay and George Frideric Haendel, who wrote a version in English that enjoyed immense popularity.

Handel had previously set one "Aci e Galatea" in Italian many years before while visiting Napoli.

The English version reached another peak late in the 18th Century when Mozart was commissioned to make an arrangement of it.


Like Lully’s setting, Johann Gottlieb Naumann’s "Aci e Galatea" was also his last composition.

Naumann, too, expanded the story a bit by adding a number of supporting characters.