Organization

Boston Early Music Festival

Singer

Cecilia Duarte

Melissa

Kameryn Lueng

Coro di piante incantate

Megan Stapleton

Mireille Lebel

Alcina

Conductor

Stephen Stubbs

Paul O'Dette

Choreographer

Melinda Sullivan

Costume designer

Anna Watkins

Colin Balzer

Ruggiero

Stage director

Gilbert Blin

Lighting designer

Kelly Martin

Mindy Ella Chu

Hannah De Priest

David Evans Morris

Daniel Fridley

Michael Galvin

Brian Giebler

Nola Richardson

Kyle Stegall

Douglas Williams

Teresa Wakim

Others

Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble

Boston Early Music Festival Vocal Ensemble

La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina -  (The Liberation of Ruggiero from the Island of Alcina)

Boston

United States

A contemporary of Monteverdi and a colleague of Galileo, Francesca Caccini came of age in Florence during the earliest years of opera as an art form. Both a composer and a performer, she was one of the most important musical figures at the Medici court during the regency of Christina of Lorraine and her daughter-in-law Maria Maddalena. In 1625, amid this time of female leadership, she created the first opera by a woman composer, La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina.
Alcina is a brilliant entertainment, full of wit, magic, and drama, with a demanding title role first sung by the composer herself. At the center of a struggle of illusion and destiny, the sorceress Alcina stands between the valiant magician Melissa and her quest to save the warrior Ruggiero and liberate the captives who Alcina has transformed into plants and trees to ornament her island.

GRAMMY Award-winning Musical Directors Paul O'Dette and Stephen Stubbs and Stage Director Gilbert Blin lead a gorgeous production–originally performed in 2018 in Boston and New York City. They are joined by Concertmaster Robert Mealy, Choreographer Melinda Sullivan, Costume Designer Anna Watkins, and the all-star singers and instrumentalists of the BEMF Vocal & Chamber Ensembles.

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