La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall’Isola di Alcina review – 17th-century rarity is fun when it forgets to be earnest

La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall’Isola di Alcina review – 17th-century rarity is fun when it forgets to be earnest

Buxton festival Francesca Caccini’s 1625 work – the earliest surviving opera by a woman – is wildly imaginative, even without the original horse ballet There is magic in the air at this year’s Buxton festival – and it’s not just the hops from the local brewery. Wizards, sorceresses and fairies curse and charm their way through a trio of operas from three different centuries. Handel and Pauline Viardot take care of the 18th and 19th respectively, but setting the cauldron bubbling is Francesca ...

By Alexandra Coghlan