ALCINA (Francesca Caccini) Boston MA 2023 & 2018 Mireille Lebel, Colin Balzer, Cecilia Duarte

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: Alcina or La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina  
• Composer: Caccini Francesca   
• Libretto: Ferdinando Saracinelli, based on Orlando furioso by Ludovico Ariosto.    Libretto Text, Libretto Index
• Venue & Opera Company: Boston, Massachusetts  
• Recorded: November 25, 2018
• Type: Staged Opera Live
• Singers: Mireille Lebel, Colin Balzer, Cecilia Duarte, Kelsey Lauritano, Colin Balzer
• Conductor: Paul O’Dette, Stephen Stubbs  
• Orchestra: Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble  
• Chorus: Boston Early Music Festival Vocal Ensemble  
• Choreographer: Melinda Sullivan  
• Stage Director: Gilbert Blin  
• Costume Designer: Anna Watkins  
• Lighting Designer: Kelly Martin  

Information about the Recording

• Published by: Boston Early Music Festival  
• Date Published: 2023  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: yessubs, ensubs  

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

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.

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