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Classical

Hugely entertaining: Royal Opera’s Alcina reviewed

19 November 2022

9:00 AM

19 November 2022

9:00 AM

Alcina

Royal Opera House, until 26 November

Sabine Devieilhe/Mathieu Pordoy

Wigmore Hall

Scott of the Antarctic

Symphony Hall, Birmigham

A hotel bellboy, the story goes, discovered George Best in a luxury suite surrounded by scantily clad lovelies and empty champagne bottles. ‘George, George’, he sighed. ‘Where did it all go wrong?’. It’s the same deal, essentially, with Ruggiero, hero of Handel’s Alcina. As the curtain rises he’s in the boudoir of Alcina, a smokin’ hot love-witch who lives on a paradise island with her minxy little sister, Morgana, and whose only serious failing – and who are we, really, to judge? – is a fondness for transforming her enemies into animals.

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