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Magic versus Psychology München
Prinzregententheater
07/13/2026 - & July 16, 18, 21, 25, 28, 2026
Georg Friedrich Händel: Alcina, HWV 34
Jeanine De Bique (Alcina), John Holiday (Ruggiero), Elsa Benoit (Morgana), Avery Amereau (Bradamante), Julian Prégardien (Oronte), Gerritt Illenberger (Melisso), Carine Tinney (Oberto)
Bayerisches Staatsorchester, Stefano Montanari (conductor)
Johanna Wehner (stage director), Benjamin Schönecker (sets), Ellen Hofmann (costumes), Michael Bauer (lighting), Saskia Kruse (dramaturgy)
(© Geoffroy Schied)
There is a persistent tendency in contemporary opera production to regard the supernatural as an embarrassment. Ghosts become hallucinations, gods become politicians, miracles become psychological projections. Yet in certain works magic is not decorative but structural: remove it, and the drama itself risks collapse. Handel’s Alcina belongs unmistakably to this category. First performed in London in 1735 and adapted from episodes of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (1532), it is less a fairy tale than a meditation on power, desire and self‑delusion, but those themes are articulated through enchantment rather than despite it. Alcina’s sorcery is not an ornamental theatrical device; it is the dramatic mechanism that explains why rational men willingly surrender identity, memory and freedom.
On her enchanted island, lovers discarded after their brief season of favour are transformed into animals, trees or stone. Only when Alcina herself experiences genuine love does the equilibrium she has so effortlessly controlled begin to disintegrate. Ruggiero, bewitched into forgetting both his former life and his betrothed Bradamante, lives contentedly as Alcina’s lover until Bradamante, disguised as her brother Ricciardo and accompanied by the magician Melisso, infiltrates the island to rescue him. Their arrival unleashes a succession of disguises, jealous rivalries and shifting loyalties involving Alcina’s sister Morgana, her neglected lover Oronte and the young Oberto in search of his missing father. Once Melisso’s magic ring breaks the enchantment, Ruggiero’s memory returns, Alcina’s powers gradually desert her, and with the destruction of the enchanted urn that sustains her kingdom, both palace and illusion dissolve together.
Johanna Wehner’s production answered the perennial question posed by modern directors with admirable clarity. Her Alcina possessed no supernatural powers. Instead, she inhabited an elegant contemporary villa whose carefully curated interiors concealed profound emotional decay. The enchanted island became the country house of a wealthy socialite, and magic was replaced by psychology.
Such a proposition was by no means unreasonable. Handel’s opera has always been more interested in emotional truth than in stage machinery, and Alcina herself is among the composer’s most psychologically sophisticated heroines. Unlike Armida or Medea, she is never simply an enchantress but a woman destroyed by the first authentic emotion she has ever experienced. One can readily imagine a production that abandoned literal magic while preserving the opera’s emotional architecture. Wehner’s staging, however, never discovered an equivalent dramatic logic.
Benjamin Schönecker’s sets aspired to understated luxury, yet one Poltrona Frau armchair and a Wassily chair scarcely disguised interiors that suggested affluent suburbia rather than the residence of a woman capable of exercising irresistible dominion over all who entered it. Lavish floral displays provided the only convincing indication of wealth, while an army of silent servants hinted at privilege without quite substantiating it. If Alcina was neither a sorceress nor extravagantly wealthy, the production never adequately explained why otherwise rational men abandoned their previous lives for her with unquestioning devotion.
The contradiction became still more apparent in the final act. Having dispensed almost entirely with the supernatural, Wehner nevertheless retained the gallery of petrified former lovers, who duly returned to life once Alcina’s power collapsed. Within a consistently realistic production, the sequence felt less like symbolism than an unresolved remnant of the original libretto. The same might be said of Alcina’s final retreat into a picture frame, an image suggestive of self-mythologisation or permanent self-imprisonment, yet one whose meaning the production never fully developed.
The opening scene nevertheless possessed genuine theatrical force. Rather than enchantment, the audience encountered destruction: smashed dishes, overturned furniture, shattered vases and an Alcina hurling a wine glass against the wall before an army of servants silently restored immaculate order. It was a striking metaphor for a household sustained entirely by appearances, where emotional catastrophe remained permanently concealed beneath cultivated elegance. Michael Bauer’s atmospheric lighting and Ellen Hofmann’s impeccably judged contemporary costumes reinforced this atmosphere of polished melancholy with considerable sophistication.
Yet once its central conceit had been established, the production struggled to sustain dramatic momentum. Characters entered, exchanged emotions, sang their arias and departed with little cumulative sense of theatrical development. Handel’s long succession of da capo arias demands direction of exceptional psychological acuity if the drama is to continue unfolding between the musical numbers. Here, too often, the staging resembled an elegantly arranged concert rather than fully realised music theatre.
One admired the production’s intellectual ambition more than its execution. Wehner correctly recognised that Alcina is fundamentally a study of emotional dependency rather than stage illusion. What she never established was how psychology alone could perform the dramatic work previously accomplished by magic. The result remained suspended between two worlds: too realistic to accommodate the supernatural, yet too dependent upon the supernatural to dispense with it.
One of the evening’s greatest strengths was unquestionably the uniformly excellent cast, whose musical standards far surpassed the uneven staging.
Despite the hype, I had not, until now, been dazzled by Trinidadian soprano Jeanine De Bique. This was due in large part to Peter Sellars’s disastrous production of Castor et Pollux in Paris, in which she was a small‑voiced Princess Télaïre with tentative French diction. Last summer, her Violetta in the Berlin production of La traviata proved even more disappointing: the voice was too small for the role, the diction seriously flawed, and there was an overall impression of insufficient preparation. Here, however, she was a magnificent Alcina. Yes, her diction again fell short of impeccable, but this paled in comparison with her many virtues. Rather than portraying the sorceress as an imposing, almost untouchable enchantress, she emphasized the character’s gradual emotional collapse, revealing increasing fragility beneath an outward appearance of confidence and authority. Vocally, De Bique was exceptional. Her soprano flowed effortlessly across the entire range, combining sumptuous tone with impeccable breath control. Long, expansive phrases were sustained with remarkable ease, while exquisitely floated pianissimi blossomed naturally into glowing climaxes without ever compromising beauty of tone or clarity of diction. In the great lament “Ah! mio cor,” Handel’s heartbreaking depiction of despair became the emotional high point of the evening. If the upper register occasionally hardened slightly under pressure, this was a negligible reservation in a performance of extraordinary technical accomplishment and emotional truth.
First heard last summer in Munich as the Sorceress in Dido and Aeneas, American countertenor John Holiday here proved an outstanding Ruggiero. Possessing an unusually warm, evenly produced countertenor, he combined vocal refinement with considerable dramatic intelligence. His account of “Verdi prati” avoided empty sentimentality, instead becoming an intimate meditation, sung with unaffected simplicity, seamless legato and a beautifully controlled sense of introspection. Equally impressive was his command of the role’s more demanding virtuoso passages, while dramatically he charted Ruggiero’s gradual liberation from Alcina’s enchantment with convincing psychological development.
Admired last summer in Munich as Zerlina in Don Giovanni and as Dorabella in Così fan tutte and more recently as Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro in Montréal, American mezzo Avery Amereau is a stunning performer whose charisma made her one of the most memorable characters in these three operas, an admirable feat, especially in the case of Zerlina. Amereau was an admirable Bradamante. Her warmly coloured mezzo‑soprano lent the character nobility and quiet determination, although the lower tessitura occasionally deprived the voice of some of its natural resonance. Her spirited “Vorrei vendicarmi” ranked among the evening’s vocal highlights. Dramatically, she was perhaps somewhat less extrovert than her colleagues, yet her musical integrity and stylistic assurance remained beyond reproach.
Last heard two years ago as Susanna in Dresden’s production of Le nozze di Figaro, where her soprano leggero lacked body and proved too shrill for the role, French soprano Elsa Benoit was a surprisingly delightful Morgana. This role suited her far better than Susanna. She brought charm, sparkling coloratura and an infectious stage presence to every appearance. Her brilliant rendition of “Tornami a vagheggiar” was dispatched with dazzling ease, capturing Morgana’s coquettish exuberance without ever descending into exaggeration. Later, Benoit revealed the character’s more vulnerable side with equal conviction, giving genuine emotional substance to a role too often treated as little more than comic relief.
Carine Tinney made an especially strong impression as Oberto. Often reduced to a secondary role, the young boy here emerged as one of the opera’s most touching characters. Tinney combined fearless coloratura with genuine emotional sincerity, making Oberto’s search for his missing father consistently affecting. Thanks to her persuasive characterization and technical confidence, the role acquired a dramatic importance it does not always achieve.
German bass Gerritt Illenberger brought dignity and quiet authority to Melisso, his firm, sonorous bass providing a welcome sense of stability amid the emotional turbulence surrounding him. Julian Prégardien was an intelligent and elegant Oronte. His stylish phrasing and sensitive shaping of Handel’s long melodic lines lent the role an unusual degree of psychological depth. Although some of the more elaborate coloratura passages occasionally sounded effortful, his refined musicianship and thoughtful characterization easily outweighed these minor reservations.
The cast as a whole demonstrated an impressive command of Handelian style. Ornamentation was consistently tasteful and dramatically purposeful, recitatives unfolded with natural conversational ease, and the ensemble singing was exemplary throughout. In an opera whose success depends largely on the performers’ ability to sustain dramatic momentum across its succession of da capo arias, these singers never allowed the emotional tension to slacken. Even when the production itself proved less persuasive, the consistently high musical standard ensured that Alcina remained thoroughly absorbing.
Previously heard conducting bel canto operas, such as Liège’s Guillaume Tell and Munich’s La Fille du régiment, Stefano Montanari conducted Alcina with brio, drawing stylish, vibrant and remarkably transparent playing from the Bavarian State Orchestra, augmented by specialists in historically informed performance. His tempi were consistently well judged, allowing the drama to unfold naturally while never sacrificing momentum. Dance movements sparkled with rhythmic vitality, lyrical passages breathed effortlessly, and even the recitatives became genuine theatrical dialogue. Throughout, he accompanied the singers with exceptional sensitivity, allowing them complete freedom without ever losing control of the musical line.
The obbligato instrumental solos, particularly those for cello, violin, flute and oboe, were exquisitely played, creating chamber‑like exchanges with the singers. Equally impressive was the imaginative ornamentation in the da capo repeats, which served the drama as much as vocal display. The orchestra responded magnificently, combining the warmth of a modern symphony orchestra with the stylistic finesse and rhythmic precision usually associated with period ensembles. Despite the opera’s considerable length, Montanari sustained dramatic tension from beginning to end, confirming himself as one of today’s finest Handel conductors.
Ossama el Naggar
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