This production of Alcina was created by Jossi Wieler in Stuttgart where it ran for about 6 years. It then went to San Francisco where Roy was the assistant director. When they remounted it in Lyon, Roy was chosen as the stage director to remount the production with an entirely new cast (except Alcina herself).

You can read a brief synopsis of Alcina at Wikipedia on the internets. Roy’s description took an entire lunch and several bottles of wine. The depth of detail and backgrounding required to fully understand it is… ridiculous. He talked all the way through lunch… and as we paid the bill he said “And that brings us to Act 2″. omg.

This production is quite avant garde. The set and costuming is entirely noire. The interpretation is also quite twisted. In the original, Alcina - a sorceress with a nasty habit of enchanting her boyfriends into trees and animals on her island - is confronted and bested by Richardo’s wife and best friend. In this version, however, Alcina is played as the only truly pure character, who only wants free love, and who is destroyed by puritans. It’s a 4ish hour production, although it was played faster than the original so ended up being less.

I loved it. The set, the interpretation, the intricate staging, the costumes, the singing. Everything.

The audience loved all of those things too… except when the directing team came out, there were a small number of VERY loud boos. Some old guard (aka retardeds) that did not appreciate having their classics messed with. IMHO, there are so many stories that are ridiculous when looked at through a modern lens, and updating them to let them breathe new air is natural.

They apparently got some boos in San Francisco as well, and it was not completely unexpected, nor did it hurt anyone’s feelings too much, apparently. I thought that grown adults booing a production that they obviously enjoyed was terrible.

The cast/crew reception upstairs was delightful. I got to mingle with all the folks I had met on my first evening, now with the context of seeing them perform, which is always nice. I met many others who had not attended the first dinner and learned new things… for example, one of the performer’s who is german, has a country house about 100km from here and keeps bees. Two years ago hr produced over 50 kilos of honey. Fun times.

Michael, Ellen, Roy, Holly and Nicolas after the Opera.

Me looking fabulous after the Opera.

We plan to leave at 9am on Monday, so we spent 45 minutes packing up after the show and reception. It was such a beautifuil night we headed out again for another walk. We stopped at a sidewalk cafe and drank a bottle of wine before heading back to the apartment to spend the last night in Lyon.

Lyon feels very very San Francisco to me. The people are very come as you are. We saw jeans and fleece at the opera and nice restaurants. It rained on and off the entire time, but it was the light rain that doesn’t require an umbrella - the sort we usually have in San Francisco, this winter very much excluded.

I loved it.