Handel’s Alcina at Town Hall
By Kernan Andrews
“THE GREATEST composer who ever lived. I would bare my head and kneel at his grave.” So said no less a composer than Ludwig van Beethoven about the great Georg Friedrich Handel.
Handel (1685 - 1759) was a success at any style of music he turned his hand to - operas, oratorios, concerti grossi, string quartets, and guitar pieces. Now one of his most famous operas is coming to Galway.
Alcina will be staged by the Opera Theatre Company in the Town Hall Theatre on Tuesday November 3 at 8pm.
Alcina was written in London and premiered at Covent Garden in 1735. It was sufficiently successful to be revived for the following two seasons.
The principal character Bradamente disguises herself as a man as she seeks the return of her lover, Ruggiero. Alcina, a sorceress, is responsible for Ruggiero’s infidelity. She has bewitched him and taken him as her lover, wiping out his memory of the abandoned Bradamante. Ruggiero’s predecessors in Alcina’s arms have been transformed into beasts, trees, even streams by her spells.
The opera is vocally challenging; exquisite melodies with long phrasing requiring extraordinary breath control and coloratura turns requires virtuoso vocal dexterity. Yet it is also seen as an opera to entice the novice as well as the long time admirer.
Tickets are available from the Town Hall on 091 - 569777.