Opera of the Week tonight -Handel’s Alcina – Opera North
OperaOpera North’s new production of Handel’s Alcina is broadcast by Slippedisc tonight courtesy of OperaVision. Director Tim Albery, challenges the historical conventions of women playing male roles and plays with gender fluidity. Designer Hannah Clark has stepped up to a different, environmental challenge; to make a production in which nothing that appears on stage is newly purchased. Baroque specialist Laurence Cummings conducts Handel’s wondrous music, overseeing the proceedings in this troubled (but sustainable) island paradise.
Plot: Alcina is the story of an enchantress who uses her magical powers to bewitch the young knight Ruggiero and keep him captive on her island.
On Alcina’s island nothing is as it seems. Alcina (soprano Máire Flavin) is an enchantress who transforms her discarded lovers into non-human form, and her island is a barren wasteland whose apparent beauty is maintained only by her powers of illusion. When Bradamante (mezzo-soprano Mari Askvik) arrives on the island in disguise intent on reclaiming her fiance Ruggiero (countertenor Patrick Terry), Alcina’s magic is tested to breaking point.
Available from 17 February 2022 at 20.00 CET, 19.00 London, 14.00 NY
I’m actually going into Leeds to aee it live – awful weather and transport permitting.
I’m not familiar with this opera but it is nice to see Handel’s neglected works get more play.
I am seeing this production at the Lowry, Salford in March. Alcina was one of the first operas I ever saw – a student production at the Royal Northern College of Music in 1989 with a young Amanda Roocroft. I had the Richard Hickox recording with Arleen Auger on cassette and now have the William Christie recording on CD. It has some very strong music.