The first opera composed by a woman! La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina was also the first to include the venomous character of Alcina and her curses. The libretto by court poet Ferdinando Saracinelli uses poems that were famous in their day by Ariosto (Orlando Furioso), Boiardo and Tasso, combining chivalry with the supernatural.

On an enchanted island, the knight Ruggiero finds himself torn between two powerful women, both sorceresses. The beautiful and dangerous Alcina seduces him, before the good fairy Melissa reminds him of his duties. Melissa is in fact a representation of the wise Marie-Madeleine of Austria, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, who commissioned the opera in 1625 to mark the visit of the Crown Prince of Poland to whom she wished to marry her daughter.

The composer Francesca Caccini is an exemplary figure of the flourishing of Italian music in the first half of the 17th century. Her graceful style flourished at the Medici court in Florence, where she delighted her contemporaries and was admired for her many musical talents, particularly her singing concerts, accompanying herself on the lute. Her refined writing brings this supernatural-inflected story to life, with melodious arias, character-revealing recitatives and choruses of monsters and enchanted plants.

Leading their ensemble I Gemelli, Emiliano Gonzalez Toro and Mathilde Étienne direct a cast and musicians experienced  in this repertoire, paying tribute to the beauty of this blossoming music.

Coproduction Royal Opera / Château de Versailles Spectacles, I Gemelli.

This program will be recorded on a CD to be released on the Château de Versailles Spectacles label.

La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina

Comic opera in four scenes and prologue, libretto by Ferdinando Saracinelli, first performed in Florence in 1625.

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