Acis and Galatea is one of Handel’s most memorable and popular English theatrical works, a dramatic and moving story of pastoral love between the shepherd Acis and the nymph Galatea, threatened and finally destroyed by the jealous monster Polyphemus.

We perform the rarely heard revised version of the work, as performed by Handel in London in 1739 and 1740 and in Dublin in 1742. The Masque of Cupid and Bacchus, written by Henry Purcell in 1695 for Shakespeare’s play Timon of Athens, is a delightful curtain-raiser.