La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina (Caccini) Opera-Movie England 2019
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina
- Composer: Caccini Francesca
- Libretto: Ferdinando Saracinelli
- Venue & Opera Company: University of Sussex, England, BREMF Early Opera
- Recorded: 2019
- Type: Movie
- Singers: Angela Hicks, Kieran White, Anna Bachleitner, Elspeth Piggott, Kat Carson, Kristiina Watt, Luthien Brackett, Marcella Di Garbo, Peter Martin, Toshi Ogita, Stuart O’Hara
- Conductor: Deborah Roberts, Oliver Webber
- Orchestra:
- Stage Director: Thomas Guthrie
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Published by: Brighton Early Music Festival
- Date Published: 2023
- Format: Streaming
- Quality Video: 3 Audio:3
- Subtitles: yessubs, ensubs
- This Recording is NOT AVAILABLE from a proper commercial or public source
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
A new film of Francesca Caccini’s 1625 opera La liberazione di Ruggiero, in the style of Georges Méliès.
Premiered in 1625, La liberazione di Ruggiero is the first known opera by a female composer – a humorous and witty work with choruses of enchanted plants, monsters, exotic ladies and sea gods, a good and an evil sorceress and a rather easily seduced ‘hero’.
Filmed in the summer of 2021 with a talented cast of young and upcoming singers and players, the opera was the subject of a study course and filming project working under the inspiring direction of Tom Guthrie, who set the fantasy world of this early opera in the world of the equally fantastical early film pioneer and illusionist Georges Méliès. Blending modern techniques, such as green screen technology, with hand drawn backdrops and animation, this film captures the pioneering spirit of the early filmmakers, while also hinting at the stage machinery and effects developed in the early 17th century at the birth of opera.