Sharleen Joynt as Morgana [Sunny Martini]

For the first time in its 60-year history, Seattle Opera has staged Handel’s Alcina. Due in large part to its audience’s unfamiliarity with Handel’s idiom, general director Christina Scheppelmann opted for a modified, chorus-less two act-version of the three-act opera that ran for two-and-a-quarter hours plus intermission rather than over three hours with two intermissions. As much as this long-distance commuter appreciated not getting home at 3 am, cutting some recitative and parts of arias only made the opera’s fantastical story line extremely hard to follow on opening night.

Tim Albery’s production, created for Opera North, did Alcina no favours. In place of Handel’s magical island kingdom, castle, cave and animals stood maybe a dozen identical green semi-upholstered chairs. Beyond a bear rug and a few staves, the only other item of moderate interest in Hannah Clark’s set was a rear video screen on to which footage of a water approach to a palm-studded island ceded to stills and occasional pans. Video designer Ian William Galloway’s projections were dark, with muted colours. Matthew Richardson’s lighting was often yellow-tinged – the sun never shone on this island – and the only ‘colourful’ costumes were golden white and silver.

Hence, it was a case of instrumental and vocal fireworks or a ho hum Alcina. In this respect, there were only three standouts. Conductor Christine Brandes, in her post-early music soprano career, triumphed over a recent bout of Covid and conducted sharply. Instrumental solos danced beautifully around voices, and the orchestra consistently played at volume levels flattering to singers. When lighter-voiced countertenor Randall Scotting (Ruggiero) sang, for example, the orchestra played softer.

Scotting sang quite well. Despite some rather plain tone in his lower middle register, there is attractive beauty in most parts of his voice. Highs swell in classic operatic fashion, he has a genuine trill, and he knows how to embellish the ends of da capo arias.

Silver-voiced Sharleen Joynt (Morgana) was the other standout. Once past her opening arias, where her transition from middle to high voice occasionally sounded shrieky, she sang beautifully. Alas, only in her famed aria, ‘Tornami a vagheggiar’, did she demonstrate the sweet-toned delights of her fluid, note-perfect coloratura above the stave. Notes flowed like water. Given how wonderful she sounded, the cheering audience was left unfulfilled in its hunger for more.

Ginger Costa-Jackson (Bradamante), Vanessa Goikoetxea (Alcina), and John Marzano (Oronte) sang their main roles with beautiful tone, and Nina Yoshida Nelsen (Melissa) sounded fine when she did sing. The women also looked fabulous. Even brief trills, however, seemed smudged, and none except Joynt ventured far enough afield from the printed score to create a single ‘wow’ moment. Although applause frequently began before an aria’s instrumental conclusion, its start in the same corner of orchestra rear, sometimes accompanied by whoops, made me wonder if a singer’s friend or company plant was responsible. Regardless, a certain portion of the audience dutifully followed.

To play up what Seattle Opera publicist and programme notes contributor Joshua Gailey called ‘the homoerotic undertones highlighted by Alcina’s cross-dressing plot,’ Albery eventually had several characters strip off significant parts of their clothing. Although Seattle Opera failed to provide a single photo that shows this clearly, the stripping grew so ridiculous that as Oronte ran around in his boxer shorts with one sock on, Bradamante disrobed to her corset, and Ruggiero followed suit by de-suiting, the audience began to laugh. For a while, it looked like we were watching a reality TV episode of Survivor or some such rot. Handel survived, of course, but as a showcase for vocal versatility and emotional potency, Alcina was given short shrift. 

This review originally appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of Opera Now. Join our community of opera lovers – subscribe to Opera Now today