Music of the Baroque is showcased again on this week’s Sunday Opera (11/03 3:00 p.m.) with another work of Handel, “Acis and Galatea” featuring Elizabeth Futral and Thomas Cooley in the title roles. The love of Acis and Galatea is thwarted by the jealousy of the giant cyclopes Polyphemus who lusts after Galatea and kills Acis after which Galatea turns Acis into a fountain (or uses his blood to create the Aci River depending upon which myth one reads) to preserve his beauty.
After the oratorio, join Michael Kownacky as he looks at two more mythological couples. First, we’ll look at Galatea in a new light as the fickle statue created by the sculptor Pygmalion and brought to life by Venus in “Die Schoene Galatee” by Franz von Suppe. The afternoon will close with a ballet with a happy ending by Maurice Ravel as he looks at the naiveté of a goatherd and shepherd in “Daphnis et Chloe.”
