La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall’Isola di Alcina review – 17th-century rarity is fun when it forgets to be earnest

Buxton festival Francesca Caccini’s 1625 work – the earliest surviving opera by a woman – is wildly imaginative, even without the original horse ballet There is magic in the air at this year’s Buxton festival – and it’s not just the hops from the local brewery. Wizards, sorceresses and fairies curse and charm their way through a trio of operas from three different centuries. Handel and Pauline Viardot take care of the 18th and 19th respectively, but setting the cauldron bubbling is Francesca Caccini’s 1625 La Liberazione di Ruggiero – the earliest surviving opera by a woman. Premiered at the M

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