Treasured Island

by David Shengold

opera

Handel's wonderful operas, neglected for two centuries, have come back with a vengeance. Passionate, tuneful, often both amusing and moving, and eminently castable (unlike many formerly common warhorses) they're now among the hottest properties on the worldwide lyric stage.

All except here in Philadelphia.

Fortunately, the drought is over. Curtis Opera Theatre offers up Alcina, one of the prolific composer's genuine masterpieces of the form. Along with Ariodante, it was the first Italian opera he wrote specifically for London's Covent Garden (in 1735). Based (like so many 18th-century operas about crazed love and magical transformations) on Ariosto's epic Orlando Furioso, it provides great roles (and a wealth of sublime arias) for singers: the titular sorceress, kept youthful by magic; the warrior she's seduced by spells; his fiancée, who's donned male attire to look for him (and confuses everybody's hormones); plus Alcina's ditzy sister, whose squabbles with her boyfriend keep things lively. Joan Sutherland, Carol Vaness, Christine Goerke and Renée Fleming are among modern sopranos who have won acclaim in the demanding leading role; at the Prince, Lishir Inbar and Heidi Melton headline alternating casts, with two fine baritones (James J. Kee and Howard Reddy) rather oddly deployed in the alto role of her boy toy Ruggiero. Sarah Hatsuko Hicks will conduct the chamber orchestra from the harpsichord, and the ever-quirky Chas Rader-Shieber directs. Apparently Alcina's magic island will be posh and pink! Not to be missed.

Alcina, Thu.-Sat., April 21-23, 8 p.m.; Sun., April 24, 2:30 p.m., $10-$30, Curtis Opera Theatre at Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St., 215-893-7902, www.curtis.edu.