Lowell Music Group Revives 'Acis and Galatea'

The Lowell House Musical Society will plunge into the past next week and present Handel's opera "Acis and Galatea" in the form and manner of its original eighteenth-century production.

Revival after a seven-year lapse of Lowell tradition of presenting an opera annually has been received enthusiastically by Boston and Cambridge academic and society folk, who have swung a measure of financial support behind the project.

Two performances are set for March 16 and 17 in the Lowell House Dining Hall.

Authenticity

Emphasis has been on authenticity during pre-production weeks. Director John C. Mathis, Jr. '50 combed records in Houghton Library in search of information concerning the original performance of Handel's work.

Written in 1720 during Handel's sojourn in England, the work--more properly called a pastoral masque--was presented in the country home of the Duke of Chandos.

Costuming and props, as far as practicable, will be reproductions of originals. A rarely-performed opera, "Acts and Galatea" was presented by Boris Goldovsky at Tanglewood several years ago in a naturalistic outdoor setting.

No Naturalism

Mathis said last night that the Society will make no attempt at naturalistic staging or acting.

Although a pastoral work--the mythical story of the love of the nymph Galatea for Acis, a youthful shepherd--Lowell's production will, following the original, make "the acting secondary to the delivery of the music," according to Mathis.

Settings, thus, will be formalized furniture of the time. There will be no curtain.

Malcolm H. Holmes '28, conductor of the Harvard Band and Orchestra, and Dean of the New England Conservatory of Music, is conducting the orchestra. The choir is under the direction of Richard F. French '35, assistant professor of Music.

Marguerito Willaner, graduate student at the new England Conservatory of Music, will play Galates. Miss Willaner, will play opposite James Perrin '50, soloist with the Harvard Glee Club, who will appear as Acis.