When Georg Frideric Handel was born in 1685, one of the world’s most inspired composers was hard at work transcribing the story of “Acis and Galatea” from the dactylic hexameter of Ovid to the stately dances and long recitatives of his own art. That composer was Jean-Baptiste Lully, and his version of the story was quite different from the Handel opera that premiered Sunday afternoon at City Opera.

Where Lully heard stateliness and decorum, Handel and his librettists, including John Gay and Alexander Pope, sensed ribaldry and rousing good humor. By the time Handel’s “Acis and Galatea” first appeared as a pastoral masque in 1718, the world of opera, and the sensibilities of its audience, had changed dramatically.

Be forewarned. “Acis and Galatea” is a mere bagatelle. Even with a full intermission, you are still out of there in less than two hours. The plot, borrowing from the Dryden translation, is simple. The nymph Galatea loves the shepherd Acis.They are happy (the big number in Act I is titled “Oh, happy we!”). A demon named Polyphemus fancies Galatea. He kills Acis, whom Galatea then turns into a stream. End of story. But there is much to be said for brevity, and much of the music is quite pleasant.

City Opera, though not a repertory company, tends to rely on a stable of singers who appear in different roles on a round-robin basis. It was thus highly unusual that all four of the principals in this production were making their debuts at the New York State Theater – as was the conductor, who is better known in a different musical guise.

Ransom Wilson has a solid reputation as a flutist,but has apparently been bitten by the conducting bug. He did a good job with this relatively simple assignment, although his tempo in the beginning was just a tad faster than the woodwinds could manage while keeping their utterances distinct. But I wished for a more skillfully blended sound. Had I not been sitting upstairs, with an aerial view of the pit, I might not have noticed that this small orchestral ensemble included a theorbo and two recorders.Their distinctive timbres were swallowed in the general din.

Mr. Wilson did an excellent job of keeping his instrumentalists in check: This band played at a low volume level, as befitted its accompanying role. However, even with such delicacy emanating from the pit, City Opera still chose to crank up its amplification system so high that an artificial and highly undesirable homogeneity of voices distracted significantly from what was otherwise an entertaining performance.

It is difficult to evaluate the individual singers who comprised this electronic goo, but I will do my best. In order of vocal quality, I would begin with the tenor of Nicholas Phan as Damon. He was very secure throughout,the only one of the four singers to succeed in a consistent fioriture and a solidified sense of pitch control. The other tenor, Philippe Castagner as Acis, sang quite comfortably in his top line – which is almost in the range of the countertentor – but he was not so confident in the nether regions, where he was consistently flat in the first act.

By contrast, Sarah Jane McMahon as Galatea was wobbly in her upper register but strong underneath. She may be a mezzo in disguise. And bass-baritone Jason Hardy as the demon provided a rather weak vocal performance. He was especially unimpressive in his alliterative passages, and made some misguided attempts at ornamentation.

Although the text is filled with sylvan imagery, director Mark Lamos set the scene at the beach, an odd deja vu for those of us who attended Luc Bondy’s more substantial “Hercules” at BAM this season. (Of course, this City Opera staging came first, and exists now in revival.) The idea of Galatea transforming Acis into a babbling brook downstage, that is, in the ocean, was therefore pretty silly.

In fact, this entire production had an amateur dramatics feel to it. Sean Curran’s awkward choreography, including a leaden hornpipe, seemed unrehearsed. But the idea of having the demon live inside a flat-screen television gets my vote for creative inspiration of the year. If only they could have turned the volume switch down.

“Acis and Galatea” will be performed again tonight, April 20, and April 22 at the New York State Theater (Lincoln Center, 212-870-5630).