Talk:Acis and Galatea

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article falls within the scope of the Opera WikiProject, a collaboration to develop Wikipedia articles on operas and opera terminology, opera composers and librettists, singers, designers, directors and managers, companies and houses, publications and recordings. The project talk page is a place to discuss issues, identify areas of neglect and exchange ideas. New members are very welcome!
Start	This article has been rated as Start-class on the quality scale.

An entry from Acis and Galatea appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 22 March 2007.

The "plot summary" is a bit jejune: imagine the effect of interjecting "like" at frequent intervals. The DNB quote about "Arcis and Galatea" is a joke, I suppose? It's not a typo, because it was repeated: "Arses and Galatea"? --Wetman 17:30, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Gr. Well, it's something and it's accurate. I had assumed that "Arcis" was a period spelling, especially since the the English always adulterate their "Ah"s. {{sofixit}} etc. Mak (talk) 01:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] the balance between opera and oratorio

hello folks, I just wanted to tie the discussion about Acis in with a discussion that has been happening on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music#Outdent, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera/Archive15#Are Handel's Oratorios part of the Opera category?, and Talk:Semele (Handel) about Handel's oratorios.

As a musician who loves Handel's works, I've made it a project of mine to edit the rather neglected English-language dramatic works (i.e. oratorios) of Handel and also help to "categorize" his works better. As part of creating a well-written article on Acis, we need to have a good way to describe both the work's original compositional life (it went through several iterations, notably a private and possibly staged performance as an english Masque in 1718 followed by an oratorio-style rewrite/revival for the London public in 1732. Handel never performed it as an opera (as far as I know), although it has significant modern performance history as such, which I'm sure the Opera project folks are much better at talking about.

In any case, I hope that everyone will join me in creating a well-written article that presents a balanced view of the work that encompasses all of these complex variables. Be bold and happy editing! Fred 04:12, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

As a starting-point for research, I'd just like to point to [1]. GFHandel.org is not certainly not exhaustive, but provides a baseline level of information, mainly drawn from the HWV catalog. HWV49a (the 1918 version) is listed as a Masque and HWV49b (the 1932 version) is listed as an Ode. Masques are more like operas and Odes are more like oratorios, but a more fine-grained understanding of what this means will require some digging for me. cheers! Fred 04:39, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

This is interesting. I was completely unaware that the work was rewritten, its dual clasification as an opera and an oratorio now makes some sense. Rackabello 04:51, 9 June 2007 (UTC)