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The libretto's author is unknown, but the plot is taken (like those of the Handel operas Orlando and Ariodante) from Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando furioso, an epic poem set in the time of Charlemagne's wars against Islam.

The plot of Alcina concerns the sixth and seventh cantos of Orlando furioso, which tell of a knight, Ruggiero, enslaved by the sorceress Alcina. Bradamante, Ruggiero's fiancée, and her companion Melisso rescues Ruggiero by breaking Alcina's enchantments, in the process freeing her former lovers whom she had turned into beasts, rocks, waves, and sand.

Like Handel's other works in the opera seria genre, Alcina fell into obscurity; after a revival in Brunswick in 1738 it was not performed again until a production in Leipzig in 1928.

The Australian soprano Joan SutherlandJoan Sutherland OM (born 7 November 1926) is an Australian opera singer. She is a famous coloratura soprano who contributed to the bel canto revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s. She retired in 1990. Sutherland was born in Sydney. In 1951, she won Au sang the role in a production by Franco ZeffirelliGianfranco Corsi (born February 12, 1923), better known as Franco Zeffirelli is an Italian film director. He is also an opera director, designer and producer of opera, theatre, motion pictures, and television. Zeffirelli has also been a member of the Ital in which she made her debut at La FeniceTeatro La Fenice ("the phoenix") is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of the most famous theaters in Europe, the site of many famous operatic premieres. On 29 January 1996, it was completely destroyed by fire, but was rebuilt in 19th-century styl in February 1960 and at the Dallas OperaThe Dallas Opera is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Dallas in 1957. Maria Callas opened the Dallas's first season with an inaugural recital. She returned the following year to perform in La traviata one of her in in November of that year.