Handel - Alcina (S.Piau / C.Rousset - P.Audi) 2015 [HDTV 1080i]

Like Handel’s Orlando (1732) and Ariodante (1734), Alcina derives from the narrative material in Ariosto’s Orlando furioso. The story of the sorceress Alcina, an initially hedonistic, manipulative woman who later finds herself a victim of love, fits into the genre of the ‘magical opera’ with numerous magical elements, but Handel achieved considerable emotional authenticity in his characterisations. This makes Alcina one of the most deeply felt and multifaceted operas. ‘You may despise what you like ; but you cannot contradict Handel,’ said the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. As in Tamerlano, Pierre Audi based this production on the stage at the baroque theatre at Drottningholm, for which he originally developed the directing concept. The set, designed by Patrick Kinmonth, is based on the principles of perspective, with wings in the form of painted panels. The result is marvellous modern musical theatre in a historizing frame.

Alcina (HWV 34) is an opera seria by George Frideric Handel. Handel used the libretto of L'isola di Alcina, an opera that was set in 1728 in Rome by Riccardo Broschi, which he acquired the year after during his travels in Italy. Partly altered for better conformity, the story was originally taken from Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando furioso (like those of the Handel operas Orlando and Ariodante), an epic poem set in the time of Charlemagne's wars against Islam. The opera contains several musical sequences with opportunity for dance: these were composed for dancer Marie Sallé.

Tracklist:
- Act I
- Act II
- Act III

Performers:
Alcina - Sandrine Piau
Ruggiero - Maite Beaumont
Bradamante - Angelique Noldus
Morgana - Sabina Puertolas
Oberto - Chloe Briot
Oronte - Daniel Behle
Melisso - Giovanni Furlanetto
Astolfo - Edouard Higuet

Conductor - Christophe Rousset
Director - Pierre Audi
Production La Monnaie / De Munt, De Nationale Opera (Amsterdam)