Alcina

An experience this afternoon at Seattle Opera.   Handel’s Alcina.   Handel wrote 36 operas between 1711 and 1738, in the Italian style. ( Before turning to his later oratorios in Britain.)  Seattle Opera has produced 4 of them in it’s 60 years.
We listened to it in the car on our trip…several times…and read and reread the silly story… An enchantress on an island and all about love, deceit, jealousy, revenge…an old story… like Circe in the Odyssey, this sorceress turns rejected lovers into wild beasts. .but we had no idea how it would LOOK.  This production used a video of the island in the background, and a reflective same size rectangle on the stage floor with 10 chairs.    6 characters moved them around a lot and there was a lot of undressing to their underwear and laying about on the bearskin rug.  And a countertenor instead of the castrato of the past.      I may have to go to YouTube for other interpretations.  :-)  Lots of interesting info in the lobby about how islands are used in literature and movies and tv.   I’m quite fond of island stories.    The blip is intermission. 
I added an extra …there was a lot about gender roles  in this opera….and this patron was posing for someone else’s camera

But in the end…it’s the breathtakingly beautiful  (and live, here)  music that captivates and brings such joy.   Definitely a rare treat!