Alcina - Royal Ballet and Opera

Alcina - Royal Ballet and Opera description

Alcina, George Frideric Handel's opera of enchantment and disenchantment, receives a new Royal Opera House production under the direction of Richard Jones. The title character is an enchantress whose island paradise conceals a dark truth: those whom she loves are ultimately transformed by her magic into the landscape around her — stone, water, beast. When the disguised warrior Bradamante arrives seeking her husband Ruggiero, the fragile world of illusion Alcina has constructed begins to crumble. It is a story that Handel treats with remarkable psychological complexity, making Alcina not simply a sorceress-villain but a figure of genuine pathos: a woman whose power cannot save her from heartbreak.

Richard Jones, known for productions of wit, visual imagination, and theatrical rigour at the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, and major houses worldwide, is an ideal guide through Handel's baroque world. Handel's da capo arias — among the most exacting in the repertoire — give the cast extraordinary scope to convey character and emotion within a highly formalised musical architecture, and the Royal Opera's ensemble of singers brings exactly the virtuosity and expressiveness this music demands. Alcina is baroque opera at its most seductive and most surprising.

Playing at Royal Opera House (venue info)