La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola di Alcina By Francesca Caccini

A fully staged new production of the first surviving ‘opera’ by a woman composer. This matinee is a slightly shortened performance for schools and elderly from day centres.

Commissioned as an entertainment in music dance and drama by the ruling regent Arch Duchess Maria Maddalena of Tuscany, this highly original work may well have served not only to entertain as a fairy tale, but also to reinforce the idea of female power, and thus to underpin Maria Maddalena’s position.