The Baroque harpsichordist Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet (1665-1729) began her career at the age of five, singing and playing the harpsichord at the court of Louis XIV. Portrait of Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre by François de Troy The opera’s female characters possess agency and complexity, and the exploration of gender is woven deep into the harmonic fabric of Liberatione: Caccini associates flat keys with female characters, sharp keys with male characters, and the key of C Major with the androgynous sorceress Melissa. In Caccini’s La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’Isola d’Alcina, two powerful sorceresses battle for the soul of the kidnapped knight Ruggiero.

The Prince also commissioned further operas by Caccini, which have since been lost. The opera impressed the royal guest so much that he arranged for the work to be reprised in Poland. La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’Isola d’Alcina (The Liberation of Ruggiero from the Island of Alcina) was presented on February 3, 1625, during a state visit from a Polish prince. The musical works commissioned during their regency frequently featured stories about powerful women in leadership, including Francesca Caccini’s Liberazione di Ruggiero, the first known opera composed by a woman. These women ruled for six years until Cosimo’s young heir came of age. At the time, the court was under the regency of two powerful women: Christine of Lorraine, the mother of Cosimo II de Medici, and the Regent Archduchess Maria Maddalena of Austria, Cosimo’s widow. In 1607, the Florentine singer and composer Francesca Caccini (1587-after 1641) was appointed to the musical service of the Medici court. A scene from the original 1625 production of Caccini’s Liberazione di Ruggiero

La opera alcina