Alcina does everything she can to keep him from leaving, but Melissa is more powerful and forces Alcina to flee the island.
Melissa, another powerful sorceress, has seen Ruggiero’s future, and knows that he must marry his betrothed Bradamante, so sets out to rescue Ruggiero from Alcina. Ruggiero has been captured by the sorceress Alcina, and is under her spell, believing her to be young and beautiful, and not the ancient sorceress she really is. The seemingly happy ending when Ruggiero gets married to Bradamante in an entirely conventional way in a suburbs manages to inspire nostalgia for the theatrical world where the sorceress reigned.Following the myths of the knight Ruggiero from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, this opera is set on and around the island of Alcina. In this adaptation by David Alden, who is making his début at the Royal Theatre, Alcina's magical kingdom is the theatre itself, constructed with references to Hollywood, magazines and musical comedy. The story, which has echoes of Homer, features the sorceress Alcina, who draws the protagonists to her island to seduce them and turn them into part of the landscape it shows Ruggiero and Bradamante's struggle to get rid of the evil witch, and continues to captivate audiences today with subtle metaphors on the illusions created by love and passion.
Händel's musical genius and the fantastical story from Orlando furioso, the epic poem by Ludovico Ariosto that inspired the opera, made Alcina one of the most popular operas by the Saxon composer (alongside Ariodante and Orlando, which were also inspired by the same great literary work) performed in Covent Garden in 1735.
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