"The [Long Leaf Opera] festival scored again with "Acts of Love," a program of two contemporary one-acts with strong casts, insightful conducting and high production values. The first, a mesmerizing setting of Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis," is an astonishingly confident work from 23 year-old Zachary Wadsworth. The piece won Long Leaf's first one-act opera competition, beating 39 other entries from six countries. Wadsworth, a graduate of Eastman School of Music and Yale, is already becoming known for a style that combines early music forms with contemporary instrumentation.

The 40-minute work, employing two soloists, a chorus and a small orchestra (string quartet, piano and saxophone), has a pure formality appropriate to the story of a goddess whose unrequited love for a youth turns to mourning after his untimely death. The strings' sharp edginess conjures Elizabethan court masques, balanced by the saxophone's modern sensuality. Wadsworth's lyrical dissonance adds mystery to his strangely attractive music."

— Roy C. Dicks