Catch Pittsburgh Opera's new take on Handel's 'Alcina'

Love triangles spark many a drama, but Pittsburgh Opera’s next production features what its stage director calls a “love pentagram.” The intricacies of the relationships seem fitting for the ornate style of the Baroque era in which composer George Frideric Handel thrived.

Pittsburgh Opera will present four fully staged performances of Handel’s “Alcina” Jan. 25 to Feb. 2 in the intimate theater at Pittsburgh’s Creative and Performing Arts High School.

Handel is most famous for the oratorio “Messiah,” but is also considered one of the greatest opera composers of his time. “Alcina” will be the sixth of Handel’s operas to be staged by Pittsburgh Opera since general director Christopher Hahn’s arrival in Pittsburgh.

The famous old recording of “Alcina” by legendary soprano Joan Sutherland registered strongly with Hahn, who has also been struck by several productions of it he has seen. Pittsburgh Opera’s production of “Alcina” is entirely new – new sets, new costumes, new lighting design and a new staging by Matthew Haney.

The opera is about the sorceress Alcina, whose spellbinds the man she loves, Ruggiero, to her. Bradamante, the woman Ruggiero loved before he was captured by Alcina, dresses as a man to free him. Morgana, Alcina’s sister, is in love with the man Bradamante pretends to be. Oronte, Alcina’s commander, is in love with her sister, Morgana.

No wonder one of the singers says you could make a flow chart of the relationships.

Each of the characters in the love pentagram “makes decisions that are great, so you don’t have a super clear protagonist or antagonist,” says stage director Haney. “We make all the relationships super clear so the audience knows what’s going on.”

“Alcina” was first performed in 1735, only four years before “Messiah.” Conductor Antony Walker thinks Handel realized while writing “Alcina” that “the English fad for Italian opera was coming to an end. With ‘Alcina’ he pulled out all the stops with virtuosic music.”

Pittsburgh native and mezzo-soprano Antonia Botti-Lodovico will play Ruggiero. She says the character changes from “lovey-dovey” while under Alcina’s spell to divided as the spell wears off.

Soprano Caitlin Gottimer plays Alcina, a character she calls “very, very powerful, manipulative and attractive.” This production is her first starring role in baroque opera. Compared with smaller roles or arias, the starring role calls on her to sing for longer periods of time and with a higher tessitura than the baroque operatic music she has sung before. It’s akin to moving up from a 10K race to a marathon.