La Liberazione di Ruggiero
- Robert Beale
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
Ferdinando Saracinelli and Francesca Caccini, after Ariosto
La Vache Baroque
Buxton International Festival
Pavilion Arts Centre, Buxton
July 15,17,19,21, 2026: 1 hr 45 mins
Buxton International Festival is proud of the extent to which baroque opera now takes its place in its schedule: this year there is not only a major Handel work on the Buxton Opera House stage but also the relative rarity La Liberazione di Ruggiero, in the smaller Pavilion venue.
The production is brought by La Vache Baroque, now the festival’s “Baroque Ensemble in Residence” after Charpentier’s La descente d’Orphée aux enfers last year, and again it’s an early work (1625), performed with period instruments.
The genre has its faithful audience: no problem there. This work has its place in history, too, as it’s considered to be the first opera written by a female composer – Francesca Caccini, daughter of the Florentine master Giulio Caccini.
The story is a simple one about a brave soldier entranced by a sorceress and tempted to engage in dalliance on her enchanted island, rather than return to military exploits. But it’s interesting also in that there are two sorceresses involved; the noble one who ultimately recalls him to his duty, and the rather more beguiling one, on whose island pleasant breezes and pastoral delights are the delectable alternative. Which of the two sorceresses is the “good” one, and which engages our sympathy and interest more?
Arguably, Francesca Caccini brought a subtler and more intuitive approach to that question than any male composer might have. Structurally the piece has our hero, Amadigi, spending much more time with the “bad” sorceress, Alcina, than with Melissa, the one who finally recalls him to military glory; and you might well conclude that Alcina presents superior attractions, despite the inevitably "proper" ending.
Director Eloise Lally sees rather more in it than that, though. It’s not immediately obvious from the staging, but her synopsis of the story in the festival handbook seems to reinterpret the island’s bucolic delights as symbolic of a place and time in the future where nature is guarded and tended, while the “western world” is ravaged by war and destruction: the “bad” sorceress as good environmentalist.
The limitations of the Pavilion Arts Centre stage and no doubt of budgetary resources mean that the one main set evokes this with a few suspended bare branches and some logs and stones in a ring. Zahra Mansouri, set and costume designer for the festival’s La Traviata, is credited as costume designer, and the very effective lighting is by Alex Musgrave.
The quality of the singing and the generous scoring of the instrumental music for violins, viola da gamba, violine, theorbo (switching to guitar for one little number about love), small pipe organ, recorders and sackbuts, directed from the harpsichord by Jonathan Darbourne, made for a warmly engaging experience for the ear.
Camilla Seale’s portrayal of Alcina and Jon Stainsby’s of Ruggiero naturally stood out (the latter has some power to bring when he needs to), and the other cast members – Phoebe Rayner as Melissa, Betty Makharinsky as Sirena, Harriet Burns as Nunzia, Aina Miyagi Magnell as Una Damigella, Filippo Turkheimer as Nettuno and Tom Kelly as Pastore and Astolfo – all acquitted themselves with distinction.
More info and tickets here
