I do not believe that the Gods ever left the Classical Arts, and- although it has been some centuries since anyone produced Classical Painting- Classical Theater, Opera, and Ballet, remain showcases for the Classical. Witness, for instance, The Enchanted Island, which had its premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on New Year’s Eve. Reviewed by Anthony Tommasini in “Shiny Bibelot From Shakespeare, Handel & Co.,” in today’s New York Times (Mon., Jan. 2, 2011, The Arts, p. C1), the “inventive concoction” is a pastiche of various Baroque composers (in the Baroque era, the habit of outfitting music from one opera with new words, and incorporating it into a new work, was common), conflating “with wit and charm” Shakespeare’s The Tempest with Midsummer Night’s Dream (with Ariel substituting for Puck, and introducing the Witch Sycorax- unseen in Shakespeare’s play- as a character). The Star Role, however, is not the Wizard Prospero so much as King Neptune, sung here by Opera Legend Placido Domingo and presented in a “dazzling underwater scene” by Denizens of the Deep singing a derivation of the Handel coronation anthem, “Zadok the Priest.” King Neptune goes on to bemoan that His supreme gift to humans- the “sublime ocean”- has been so thoroughly polluted and despoiled. It sounds like a fascinating show, demonstrating that Classical music, wed to Classical Theater and Classical Deities, can make a powerful contemporary ecological comment.