George Frideric Handel, Alcina (1735)

HEY GUESS WHAT POEM THIS IS BASED ON. I bet you would not get it right if you had one million guesses.

What's odd is that even though the overall story here is very familiar--it's basically the same stuff as La liberazione di Ruggiero, albeit at greater length: he's enchanted by Alcina and it's up to the other knights to convince him to leave her and return to murder-related feats, as well as his fiancée Bradamante--the opera remains sort of confusing: so for instance, in addition to Alcina, there's another enchantress, Morgana (Le Fey?). Who is this? What's her purpose? Is she Alcina's subordinate enchantress or are they just pals or what (okay, wikipedia says they're sisters, but that, as far as I could see, is never disclosed in the opera itself). And these other dudes wandering around: it's hard to keep them straight or remember what they're meant to be doing here.

But none of that really matters. You can follow it well enough, and it does a good job making Alcina a somewhat sympathetic character in spite of everything--sure, she turns former lovers into wild animals and inanimate objects, but hey, he who is without sin and so on. This actually features Bradamante as a character, and she kind of makes Alcina look better, because she kind of just represents dull rectitude, which isn't that fascinating--which is too bad, because as you recall, in the poem she's a cool-ass lady knight, Rinaldo's sister, "held in no less honor than her brother/For they are known to equal each the other."

Anyway, that was a tangent. But the REAL points to be made are: the music is terrific, and Opera McGill really outdid themselves with this production. Alas, I do not have the critical context or vocabulary to compare Handel operas in any cogent way, so I'm left saying unhelpful things like "this music fuckin' rules," and "this must be one of the best scores he ever composed." Why? Quick, look over there! *smoke bomb*

Still, it is what it is. The production is a Chinese-themed thing, which seems a little weird at first but which one quickly gets used to. The set is fairly minimalistic, featuring just a giant coin with one of those square holes in the middle, and Chinese characters on each side. It's all fine. One of the first things you note is that the singer playing Ruggiero (Simone McIntosh) is physically smaller than the one playing Alcina (Anna-Sophie Neher), which looks a little weird, and you think, hmm, was this the best casting? But then she opens her mouth and one's doubts are allayed. Don't get me wrong, everyone's great here, but she McIntosh really take the cake. And she has a website! So you KNOW she's good.

According to wikipedia, this quickly fell out of fashion, being performed in 1738 and then no more until almost two hundred years later in 1928. That's NUTS; this rules. Handel, man. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say I thinkthis kid is going places.