Alcina

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. The opera contains several musical sequences with opportunity for dance: these were composed for dancer Marie Sallé.

Alcina was composed for Handel's first season at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London. It premiered on 16 April 1735. Like the composer's other works in the opera seria genre, Alcina fell into obscurity; after a revival in Brunswick in 1738 it was not performed again until a production in Leipzig in 1928.

The Australian soprano Joan Sutherland sang the role in a production by Franco Zeffirelli in which she made her debut at La Fenice in February 1960 and at the Dallas Opera in November of that year. She performed in the same production at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1962. It was given as part of the Ledlanet Nights festival in Scotland in 1969. A major production was the one directed by Robert Carsen and originally staged for the Opéra de Paris in 1999 and repeated at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Both stagings featured Renée Fleming in the title role.

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