Nomination for BBC Music magazine Opera Award 2019

The Times Best Classical Music Album of 2018

“Allan Layton and Lucy Crowe enchant as the lovers menaced by Neal Davies’s “monster Polypheme” in Handel’s pastoral masterpiece.”

“… The singers are all excellent. Outstanding is the gorgeous work of Crowe …”

“The Early Opera Company plays with amazing dexterity … his [Curnyn] five accomplished singers present a treasure trove of memorable Handelian singing.”

“… Lucy Crowe is an enchanting Galatea: warm and womanly in ‘As when the dove’, full of tender regret in ‘Heart, the seat of soft delight’. Tenderness – without regret – is the hallmark of Allan Clayton’s Acis in ‘Love in her eyes sits playing’, and his tone is always beautiful, even in his vigorous preparation for battle. The bet-known number is ‘O ruddier than the cherry’, with its incongruous, penny-whistle accompaniment: Neal Davies, less lumbering than some, almost makes Polyphemus a credible suitor. In this tenor-heavy cast, Benjamin Hulett and Jeremy Budd are mellifluous with, like the rest, excellent diction…”

***** Essential Album

“What a delectable cast Christian Curnyn has gathered for his new recording of Acis and Galatea. Lucy Crowe’s Galatea is joined by three outstanding British tenors – Allan Clayton’s Acis, Ben Hulett as fellow shepherd Damon, and Jeremy Budd as Coridon. Add go-to Handelian bass-baritone Neal Davies as Polyphemus and rising soprano Rowan Pierce to fill out choruses, and you have a baroque dream-team even before you get to Curnyn and his superb period orchestra. From a crisp opening Sinfonia, crackling with gut-texture and energy, to a graceful closing chorus, Acisis served supremely well here…”  ****

Artistic Judgement: Great/Exceptional       Technical Sound Judgement: Great (Dynamics: 4      Soundstage: 5   Timbre: 4     Detail: 4)

“In this special version for the Earl of Carnarvon, Handel added two shepherds to the three main figures of his opera Acis and Galathea. Christian Curnyn draws vigorous and strong performances from The Early Opera Company and the soloists.” *****

“… Overall there is freshness to Curnyn’s direction that evokes appropriately the Arcadian world of an innocent love-story murderously interrupted by the jealous Cyclops Polyphemus. The small chorus – presumably the five soloists in ensemble, with the addition of Rowan Pierce, as no other singers are credited in the booklet (which includes the text) – ensures that the choral numbers are executed cleanly, and the incisive attack on the imitative lines of ‘Oh, the pleasure of the plains’ gives the music bite and impetus, drawing the listener into the intimacy of this enchanted world, and the open acoustic of St-Jude-on-the-Hill gives the music room to breathe and an impression of the outdoors. Crucially, also, there is space for Allan Clayton to bring Acis to life with his warmly ardent, mellifluous singing, which is unaffectedly expressive. Likewise Lucy Crowe combines assurance and control as his lover, the nymph Galatea, with a musical delicacy that foreshadows the vulnerability of their short-lived happiness…”  *****

Recording of the Month

“… Superb; buy it … It is gripping from beginning to end… There are opportunities galore for the five characters to strut their musical stuff… The recording at St Jude-on-the-hill is lovely and spacious…”

“…The score has a youthful and mercurial quality that never sinks into baroque pomposity: this is Handel at his most light-footed and playfully inventive… Christian Curnyn conducts the orchestra and choir of the Early Opera Company with unaffected stylish ease, with Allan Clayton and Lucy Crowe all tender charm as the titular shepherd and nymph, ably supported by Benjamin Hulett, Jeremy Budd, Rowan Pierce and Neal Davies in subsidiary roles…”  ****

Performance *****          Recording *****

“… a benchmark that will be hard to beat.”

Album of the Week

 “…Crowe is predictably delicious as Galatea … She is well partnered by Allan Clayton’s heroic Acis … Benjamin Hulett’s Damon supplies the set’s most exquisite singing in Consider, Fond Shepherd. The emotional climax is the great chorus Wretched Lovers!, which heralds the tragic despoiling of Arcadia by the murderous Cyclops. A must-have for Handelians."