Seattle Opera recently presented George Frederick Handel’s opera Alcina (the final performance was October 28), directed by Tim Albery. This was the company’s first staging of Alcina, although Seattle Opera has staged other Handel operas including Xerxes, Semele, and Giulio Cesare. Scenic and Costume Designer Hannah Clark placed the action in an unidentifiable time and place; characters wear contemporary dress and lounge on modern furniture, but accessorize with magic staffs, swords, and bits of Renaissance-era armor.
The title character rules a seemingly beautiful island where she seduces visitors until she’s bored with them, and then turns them into wild beasts or landscaping features. Into this hellish playpen steps a young woman disguised as her own brother, in search of her fiancé, Alcina’s latest boytoy. The plot includes mistaken identities and inappropriate attractions as the characters struggle to free themselves from Alcina’s powers and illusions.
Several of the six singers were familiar to Seattle audiences, and the acting and vocal quality of all was excellent (although some voices were sounding tired by the final performance). Sharleen Joynt (as Alcina’s sister Morgana) was a joy to hear—a confident, sweet coloratura that soared effortlessly into stratospheric heights. Vanessa Goikoetxea’s Alcina was riveting as a woman who is losing her narcissistic supply and feels her power dissipating. Her extended tantrum in Part 2 was classic scene-chewing, appropriate to the self-absorbed monster she was portraying.
The orchestra was superb, and the solo cello in the continuo sections was heart-opening, matching the singer with lyrical and soulful lines. “Worth the price of admission,” said my companion.
However, the staging was more challenging for audiences. Hannah Clark’s set consisted of ten green chairs that could have denoted a hotel lobby, an airport lounge, or any other place where people wait for life to start happening. The lighting was relatively dim through Part 1, and the rear-projected video of the approach onto the island was in black and white, creating a semi-dream state where everything is a little out of focus and colorless. As the characters struggled with their fantasies, the video moved us deeper into the jungle, becoming increasingly dark and sinister. Part 2 used spotlights on individuals as the characters began to regain their own identities and agendas. When the spell was broken, the video rushed us backwards out of the jungle and onto the surrounding ocean, the island lost in the distance.
The production took a sharp turn toward farce when three of the characters stripped down to their tasteful black underwear. The audience began to laugh as a character stalked off stage with one sock still on; there was laughter again as the heroine tore off her shirt to convince her fiancé that she was all woman; and in Part 2, when another character reached for her own dress zipper, the laughter was unrestrained. Was this the mood the director was trying for? I believe so; there were signals throughout that this was farce—a noisy smack of a kiss, an oversize hanky offered to a weeping woman—in spite of Alcina’s sinister power and overwrought self-pity.
These conclusions about the production are based on a second viewing of the opera and two weeks of thought, however. Minimalist and non-traditional productions sometimes seem to be the “self-checkout line” of opera and other theater; they ask their audiences to do a lot of heavy lifting. This can engage the audience as co-creators, but it can also detract from what distinguishes opera from other art forms: the music—particularly in Baroque opera, where the point of the opera is a display of vocal acrobatics. It can be difficult to concentrate on a character’s musicality, for example, when we are wondering which item of clothing will come off next.
Finally—this opera is an experience of superbly sung and played Handel, but challenging for contemporary tastes, which look for more action and plot. A woman near me afterward commented “The music was really good, but I won’t be buying the album.”
Alcina (1735), music by George Fredrick Handel, libretto adapted from Antonio Fanzaglia. Seattle Opera, McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer Street, Seattle 98109.
Unfortunately the Opera has already closed