Introduction: Sorcerers and Sorceresses

university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 4, fall 2003 CARYL CLARK Introduction: Sorcerers and Sorceresses >Sorcerers and sorceresses, we may not know it but you thrive among us! Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, opening of canto viii What, you might ask, do Oedipus Rex and Alcina have in common B aside from being performed in the city of Toronto in fall of 2002? Reflecting on what rationale there might be for bringing together papers presented on two different operas at two separate symposia B >Oedipus Rex: Plagues and Politics,= and >Apprenticing with a Sorceress: Handel=s Alcina= B I was struck by the many ways in which the themes of these two operas resonate with one another. Although separated by nearly two centuries of sweeping changes in operatic conception and musico-dramatic presentation, Alcina and Oedipus Rex create a fascinating nexus for cross-century reflection. In addition to tableau-like set pieces, static choruses, and formulaic design features, the two works share deeper dramatic resonances. Handel=s Alcina (London, 1735) is based on an anonymous libretto that recounts the story of a sorceress and her bewitched lover as depicted in cantos vi and vii in Ludovico Ariosto=s sixteenth-century epic poem Orlando Furioso. As Domenico Pietropaolo outlines in his article >Alcina in Arcadia,= the opera retells the story of the young knight Ruggiero, who, in falling under the spell of the bewitching Alcina on her enchanted island, temporarily forsakes his military calling and his beloved Bradamante, only to learn of his betrayal of society and of his lover when the true vagaries of Alcina=s desert realm are revealed to him through the magic ring of his tutor. But the story is also that of the downfall of a headstrong sorceress who loses all, including her kingdom and her beloved Ruggiero, after having fallen victim to the powers of true love. Like Oedipus, hers is a fate of ostracization. Indeed, as the Faculty of Music=s production of Alcina emphasized, the sorceress=s exotic isle is a barren and forlorn place, its famed fantasy being just that B a magical illusion. Confronted with a stark and empty stage, we witness from the outset the depravity of Alcina=s world and her vainglorious ambitions, acknowledging what a love-blind Ruggiero can only admit after having the scales removed from his eyes. In the exquisitely simple >Verdi prati= (Verdant fields; see Harris, example 1), Ruggiero =s touching aria of reformation tinged with nostalgia and regret, the knight, having been released from Alcina=s ensnarement, sees the 828 caryl clark university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 4, fall 2003 desolate landscape in all its decrepitude and ugliness, finally coming to terms with his errant ways. As in Oedipus Rex, extravagant Dionysian impulses submit to Apollonian rationalism and control as the distraught hero chooses a new life=s direction. Through knowledge and insight, Ruggiero and Oedipus are forced to confront their innermost fears and embark on a different course, even to the point of electing the fate of permanent blindness in the case of Oedipus. In Alcina, however, it is a sorceress, not a king, who suffers personal defeat and humiliation resulting from the machinations of her own web of intrigue. With the hero=s resolute turn towards honour and duty, an abandoned Alcina is transformed from powerful enchantress to forlorn woman; a ready scapegoat for the ills of society, she suffers a similar fate to countless other witches in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, as Pietropaolo elaborates in >Alcina in Arcadia.= For cities and towns ravaged by the plague of witchcraft over the course of a couple of centuries, cleansing the community of undesirables was essential for survival, leading to the containment, torture, expulsion, and destruction of numerous girls and women deemed depraved, promiscuous, and a threat to society, including many innocent souls. Alcina=s downfall was inevitable, since her transgressions posed a threat to civil society and world order. Emphasizing these broader witchcraft implications of the opera, the Faculty of Music production featured a cauldron-like pit in the middle of the stage that ultimately became the whipping-ground where a captured and defeated Alcina was punished, ridiculed, and rebuked by...