It’s quite a surprise to find a Handel opera emanating from Vienna, albeit with a foreign orchestra and production team: respect to Dominique Meyer, the Staatsoper’s new director. Alcina was the second wholly new opera that Handel staged in 1734‑35 at Covent Garden, all the members of the cast except one having taken part in Ariodante three months earlier.

The forces at Covent Garden included a small chorus and a dance company. Handel took advantage of these exceptional facilities, and there is ballet in each of the three acts of Alcina. In this production, the interval comes in the middle of Act 2: two recitatives and one aria, Oronte’s ‘È un folle’, are omitted, and the ritornello of a chorus discarded before the premiere (and recycled in the Organ Concerto, Op 4 No 4) introduces the second half.

Adrian Noble sets his production in a salon, where Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, is receiving her guests; they then perform the opera, the part of Alcina taken by the Duchess herself. It’s a charming conceit, even if we know that Georgiana’s heyday was long after Handel’s time and that, for instance, the bearded figure of Melisso bears no resemblance to her friend Charles James Fox.

The illusion that we are watching an 18th-century amateur performance is enhanced by the continuo and obbligato players being placed onstage (but not, unfortunately, the horns in ‘Sta nell’Ircana’, which are insufficiently prominent). Conductor and orchestra are superb; so is Anja Harteros, who finds real depth in Alcina’s passion for Ruggiero. After an effortful start in her opening aria, Veronica Cangemi is well on form in ‘Credete al mio dolore’. Kristina Hammaström looks and sounds well as Bradamante. Sad to say, Vesselina Kasarova is deeply disappointing: she begins phrase after phrase with a kind of bark, and there are alarming gear changes. I kept wishing for Sarah Connolly!