Liberazione

La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina (En. "The Liberation of Ruggiero from the island of Alcina") is a comic opera in four scenes by Francesca Caccini, first performed 3 February 1625 at the Villa di Poggio Imperiale in Florence, with a libretto by Ferdinando Saracinelli based on Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. It is the first opera written by a woman and was long considered to be the first Italian opera to be performed outside of Italy.[a] It was performed to celebrate the visit of Prince Władysław of Poland during Carnival 1625, and it was revived in Warsaw in 1628. The work was commissioned by her employer Regent Archduchess Maria Maddalena of Austria, wife of Cosimo II de' Medici.

This live recording, from the Huelgas Ensemble directed by Paul van Nevel, is the second version of this early baroque opera to appear within a few months. The first was from an ensemble combining Allabastrina, La Pifarescha and an excellent team of vocal soloists directed by Elena Sartori. I am not in a position to make a direct comparison between the two versions at the moment, but one obvious difference is that the present recording from Van Nevel takes 88 minutes and is spread over two CDs, whereas Elena Sartori’s team manages to squeeze the work onto one disc of 79 minutes.

A CD of the Bamberger Symphoniker, conducted by Ingo Metzmacher, was recently released, featuring works by Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1905-1963) and Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975). The pairing of these works will not be a coincidence, because both composers were not only friends, but they also shared a number of characteristics, such as the proclamation of humane ideals and the pursuit of expressiveness. Perhaps their only point of contention was the twelve-tone technique, which Hartmann didn't like, while Dallapiccola was intensively involved with it.

With this production of Francesca Caccini’s 'La liberazione di Ruggerio dall'isola di Alcina', directed by Elena Sartori, an important stepping-stone in the development of 17th-century opera receives a superb new recording from Glossa. For much of her career - Caccini was a composer, a virtuoso singer, a teacher, a poet and a multi-instrumentalist - she worked at the Medici court, and was commissioned by the grand duchess of Tuscany, Maria Maddalena of Austria, to write this commedia in musica for performance in Florence in 1625.