The Old Market,Hove
Brighton early music festival’s saucy production of Francesca Caccini’s 1625 opera is full of fun, well cast and beautifully sungThe centrepiece of this year’s Brighton early music festival, and Francesca Caccini’s La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall’Isola dAlcina is the earliest surviving opera by a woman composer. Premiered in 1625 at the court of the Florentine regent,Maria Maddalena of Austria, it also broke original ground by jettisoning classical subject matter in favour of a story drawn from a Renaissance epic, or in this instance from Ariostos Orlando Furioso. Two sorceresses,sensual Alcina and moralistic Melissa, battle for the soul and body of the warrior Ruggiero. Melissa is reckoned to be a thinly disguised portrait of the formidable Maria Maddalena herself.
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Source: theguardian.com