Theatre Reviews

This is the last of three operas Handel took from the Italian poet Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. It involves a sorceress named Alcina who, like Circe in Homer’s Odyssey, transforms any visiting man into a wild beast or even a force of nature. He composed it for his first season at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden,  and its unashamedly erotic style is for an audience younger than the one patronising Covent Garden today — see my review in The Article.