Gottingen. (International).

When we think of composers of Italian opera who enriched their works with elements from French opera, Handel doesn't immediately spring to mind. Nevertheless, the theme of this year's Gottingen International Handel Festival--"Handel and Le Gofit Francais"--made perfect sense. Dance, chorus and stage spectacle made French opera distinctive, and one of the composer's most beloved operas, Alcina, incorporates them all. Nowadays the ballets are usually cut, a practice that goes back to Handel's first revival of the opera. But Gottingen's new production of Alcina in the Deutsches Theater (May 18) was directed by Catherine Turocy, a specialist in Baroque dance. She ensured that the dances, performed by her New York Baroque Dance Company, played an integral role in the story of the enchantress who lures men to her magic island and transforms them into wild beasts or other undesirable states. Some of these unfortunate souls, one in the form of a white gorilla, danced for Alcina's entertainment. And dance contributed strikingly to the denouement when her erstwhile victims wobbled onstage, returned to human form but dazed, like the prisoners in Fidelio.

Gottingen sometimes still flirts with the idea of a "historical staging" to match the period instruments in the pit, and this was such an occasion. Turocy's work was informed by her study of Baroque gesture, but she drew on modern directing techniques as well, such as bringing onstage a character who is not supposed to be there to react to an aria. To an impressive degree, singers varied repeats not just through ornamentation but by finding new emotional content in the texts. However, Scott Blake's musty-looking flats, while perhaps having historical practice in their favor, lacked any touch of magic and shortchanged the French element of spectacle. Bonnie Kruger costumed some characters in overblown medieval garb, with plumed helmets, and others in eighteenth-century dress.

Despite the French accoutrements, the heart of Alcina lies in its arias, and Gottingens cast, headed by Yvonne Kenny, did wonders with them. Oddly enough for a singer whose long, distinguished career has included much opera seria, this was Kenny's first production with period instruments. She made ...