She has sung with the world’s leading symphony orchestras, including the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the San Francisco Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the New York Philharmonic and the Rotterdam Philharmonic, as well as Baroque orchestras such as Les Talens Lyriques, the Venice Baroque Orchestra, Le concert de la Loge, Accademia Bizantina, Il Complesso Barocco, Freiburger Baroque Orchestra, the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Les Violons du Roy. Roberts, who has also prepared the performing edition of the score, directs it with fastidious care.Recognized for her work in the Baroque repertoire, Canadian soprano Karina Gauvin sings Bach, Mahler, Britten and the music of the 20th andĢ1st centuries with equal success. But Pritchard and Devin look and sound gorgeous, Lakey can be very funny, and the choral singing is exceptionally beautiful.

Placards held up by cast and chorus in place of surtitles give us a paraphrase of the text that is witty but sometimes obscures Caccini’s seriousness of purpose.

Waters’s Wildean take relocates the opera to Brighton itself at the close of the 19th century, where we find Nick Pritchard’s handsome, dissolute Ruggiero in thrall to Anna Devin’s charismatic Alcina, who presides over a coterie of corseted sirens and cross-dressing sailors that might have attracted Dorian Gray.Ĭountertenor Denis Lakey, meanwhile, in drag as Melissa, fusses and pontificates like Lady Bracknell. Staged by Susannah Waters, and directed from the keyboard by Deborah Roberts, the BREMF production is a delight. Countertenor Denis Lakey as Melissa in La Liberazione di Ruggiero.

La opera alcina