Matilda Hofman Archives - Cleveland Classical

Oberlin Opera to present Handel’s Acis and Galatea

November 9, 2021 by Mike Telin

by Mike Telin

In Book XIII of Ovid’s epic poem Metamorphoses, we encounter the tale of Ajax and Ulysses and the armor of Achilles, the Fall of Troy, and the pilgrimage of Aeneas. Book XIII also contains the story of the lovers Acis, a mortal shepherd, and Galatea, a sea nymph. But when Acis is killed at the hands of Polyphemus, the jealous Cyclops, Galatea transforms her lover into an immortal river spirit.

This week, Oberlin Opera Theater presents Handel’s Acis and Galatea in Hall Auditorium beginning on Thursday, November 11 at 8:00 pm. Performances continue on Friday and Saturday at 8:00 and on Sunday at 2:00 pm. With a libretto by John Gay, the opera will be sung in its original English. Guest conductor Matilda Hofman leads a cast of seven principal performers, a 16-member chorus, and the Oberlin Orchestra. The opera is presented in two acts with a duration of approximately two hours, including intermission. Click here for tickets.

Originally devised as a one-act masque, Acis and Galatea was premiered in 1718 and by the mid-century, it had been staged more than 70 times. It is also one of the composer’s only staged works to remain popular after his death. In addition to a masque, the work has been described as a serenata, a pastoral opera, and even an oratorio.

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CIM Opera’s engaging Puccini double bill prompts both laughs and tears (Nov. 7)

by Stephanie Manning

The three one-act operas that make up Giacomo Puccini’s Il trittico (The Triptych) are typically connected by theme, rather than location. Although the trio of works take place in 13th-century Paris, 17th-century Siena, and 20th-century Florence respectively, they all deal with keeping someone’s death a secret — whether tragically or comedically.

CIM Opera Theater’s recent production of two-thirds of the triptych brought the action into one particular place and time, as director Dean Southern moved both Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi into 1918’s New York City. What stood out more, however, were the impressive performances from across the large cast, which I heard on November 7 in Kulas Hall.

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Oberlin Orchestra with the Poiesis Quartet in Finney (Oct. 31)

by Daniel Hathaway

Fresh from winning the grand prize at the prestigious Banff Competition on the last day of August, the Poiesis Quartet (Sarah Ying Ma & Max Ball, violins, Jasper de Boor, viola, and Drew Dansby, cello) took a late October victory lap at the Oberlin Conservatory, returning to their place of birth as an ensemble to give master classes and solo with the Oberlin Orchestra.

Judging from the turnout in Finney Chapel on Friday, it might not have been a prizewinning idea to schedule a major orchestra concert on a college campus on Halloween, but there was nothing slim about the sound that the stage full of musicians produced. Brilliantly scored works by Carlos Simon, John Adams, Angélica Negrón, and Zhou Tian, were conducted with precision by Rafael Jiménez.

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Cleveland Orchestra makes a sinister showing of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (Nov. 5)

by Peter Feher

A violin bow is an unlikely murder weapon. But in the hands of composer Bernard Herrmann, the slashing motion of a string instrument seems almost one and the same with the stabbing knife onscreen in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 classic Psycho.

The infamous soundtrack to secretary Marion Crane’s final moments in the shower — and also to private investigator Milton Arbogast’s stumbling death down the stairs later in the film — is horrifyingly simple. A series of screeching down-bows begins in the first violins and then stacks in dissonant intervals as the remaining string sections join in. The gesture is more like a Foley effect than music per se, evoking something between a human scream and the shriek of metal against metal.

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