Elsa van den Heever (Alcina) © Ken Howard for Santa Fe Opera, 2017
My review of Santa Fe Opera’s Alcina for Bachtrack:
George Bernard Shaw crystallised longstanding biases when he declared that Handel’s operas were “only stage concerts for shewing off the technical skill of the singers”. David Alden, a longstanding maverick director and hero of Regie-philes, made his reputation in part through his striking interpretations of Handel. If anything, his production of Alcina, which he first staged at the Opéra National de Bordeaux in 2012 (with many of the same singers), pushes too far in the opposite direction to the theatrically static fossil of Shaw’s stereotype.
Filed under: directors, Handel, review, Santa Fe Opera
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 