Organization

Singer

Soprano

Inga Kalna

Alcina

Veronica Cangemi

Morgana

Countertenor

Vesselina Kasarova

Ruggiero

Contralto

Kristina Hammarström

Bradamante

Conductor

Marc Minkowski

Stage director

Adrian Noble

Set designer

Anthony Ward

Costume designer

Lighting designer

Jean Kalman

Choreographer

Sue Lefton

Chorus master

Thomas Lang

Anja Harteros

Tenor

Alois Mühlbacher

Oronte

Benjamin Bruns

Bass

Adam Plachetka

Melissio

Wiener Staatsoper

Orchestra

Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble

Italian

Vienna

Austria

Handel’s operas are now so thoroughly a part of modern musical life that you might think every major opera house welcomes them. But until November 2010, when it introduced an absorbing new production of Alcina, the Vienna Staatsoper resisted them, not having done a Baroque opera since Monteverdi’s Poppea in the 1960s.

The present production boasted an all-star cast of Baroque specialists, a former director of the Royal Shakespeare Company – Adrian Noble, the highly-acclaimed conductor Marc Minkowski and his Les Musiciens du Louvre-Grenoble in the pit.

Adrian Noble places his Alcina into a framework which begins in the magnificent ballroom of the Devonshire-House in London Piccadilly. The legendary Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, stages a play in which she is acting together with her friends, a stage on the stage. Alcina is a great musical experience geared to the Baroque curiosity. Marc Minkowski revives Handel’s music in an outstanding way

Alcina (HWV 34) is a 1735 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.[1][2] 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. The opera contains several musical sequences with opportunity for dance: these were composed for dancer Marie Sallé .

The Theater an der Wien usually takes care of baroque in Vienna. With Handel's magic opera Alcina, the Staatsoper not only brought the first baroque opera to the stage in 50 years, but also hired a specialist ensemble for the first time. Anja Harteros shines as the sorceress Alcina, Vesselina Kasarova as the knight Ruggiero.

Experience director Adrian Noble's and conductor Marc Minkowski’s acclaimed 2011 production of Handel's Alcina in the Wiener Staatsoper. Re-imagining the classic opera as a play-within-a-play, this Alcina is staged in late 18th century London by the famous British Duchess Georgiana Cavendish and her friends. A fascinating few hours of baroque delights!

The story of Alcina unfolds on an enchanted island where Alcina, a powerful sorceress and her sister Morgana dwell. Many heroes have been lured to the magical domain of Alcina only to fall under her spell and be turned into rocks, streams, trees, and animals. Alcina’s latest captive is the crusader Ruggiero. Ruggiero's fiancée Bradamante, disguised as a man, and Ruggiero's former tutor Melisso come in search of him. Alcina's sister Morgana soon becomes attracted to the disguised Bradamante. This causes her lover, Oronte, to become jealous. In the end, Ruggiero and Bradamante escape and destroy the powers of both Alcina and Morgana.

Baroque operas make up the bread and butter of most opera houses today, but until November 2010, the Wiener Staatsoper had resisted them, with its last Baroque venture back in the 1960s. Enter their 2010-2011 production of Alcina, which boasted an all-star cast of Baroque specialists, a former director of the Royal Shakespeare Company Adrian Noble, the highly-acclaimed conductor Marc Minkowski and his Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble.

Alcina by Händel, From (2011/2011), Directed by Adrian Noble,, Conductor Marc Minkowski, Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna, Austria

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