Haymarket Opera Company

Haymarket celebrates Handel’s 336th birthday with the intimate pastoral cantata Apollo e Dafne. The sun god Apollo has just saved the world from the terrors of the giant Python when he spies the ravishingly beautiful huntress Dafne. He is overcome with desire but Dafne will have none of it. She is devoted to Apollo’s sister Diana, the virgin goddess of the hunt. After a breathtaking chase, she escapes him by transforming into a laurel tree. In his deep grief he promises to keep the tree forever green with his tears and to crown heroes with its leaves. The astonishing beauty of Handel’s music have made Apollo e Dafne one of his greatest hits. The dynamic duo soprano Erica Schuller and baritone Ryan de Ryke, well-known to Haymarket audiences for their show-stopping performances in Telemann’s Pimpinone, create the roles of Daphne and Apollo in Handel’s youthful masterpiece. Schuller’s burnished soprano “easily wins our hearts with her infectious goodness, winning smile, and gorgeous tone” (Stage and Cinema) and De Ryke’s “supple, refined baritone” (Chicago Classical Review) is the ultimate match for the virtuosic demands of Handel’s Apollo.