A New Perspective on Opera

Across Europe, operas composed by women are being rediscovered, including Rosa Coccia’s ”lost work” Ifigenia (1779); Fritiofs saga, the opera by Elfrida Andrée and Selma Lagerlöf, which received its world premiere this spring at the Aalto MusikTheater in Essen—approximately 130 years after it was composed; and Antonia Bembo’s Ercole amante (1707), currently being performed at the Paris National Opera. Yet despite these encouraging developments, only a handful of these remarkable works by women are presented on Swedish stages.

With the Confidencen Opera & Music Festival – FEMALE EDITION, Den Andra Operan (AnOther Opera), in collaboration with Confidencen, invites audiences to immerse themselves in the magical, enchanting, and richly diverse world of opera created by women. Alongside Francesca Caccini’s La Liberazione, which takes audiences back to the very birth of opera, the festival will feature Den Andra Operan’s 10th Anniversary Concert, presenting works by composers including Maria Antonia Walpurgis and Anna Amalia of Saxony, as well as a programme dedicated to Wilhelmine of Bayreuth—opera composer and sister of the Swedish queen Lovisa Ulrika.

Women have been creating opera for as long as the art form has existed. Although they often worked under more difficult conditions or were compelled to compose under pseudonyms, they have continually enriched the operatic repertoire from which we can draw today.

The drive and desire to create opera are undeniable, and our composers found different ways to pursue this calling despite the restrictive social norms of their time. To discover them, we have searched monasteries, royal courts, and professional musical families.

During the Baroque period, convents were not only religious centres but also places of learning where young women could cultivate their musical and literary talents—an environment scholars believe shaped the career of Camilla de Rossi.

Women of the aristocracy also found opportunities to compose. Maria Teresa Agnesi presented both her own works and those of others in the salons of influential patrons, while courtly settings enabled princesses such as Maria Antonia Walpurgis to stage their operas in court theatres.

A third path for women aspiring to become opera composers was to belong to one of the professional musical families that, during the Renaissance and Baroque eras, formed a distinct social class. One of the most remarkable examples is Francesca Caccini, daughter of the composer Giulio Caccini.

Francesca Caccini was quite literally present at the birth of opera as an art form. At just thirteen years old, in 1600, she performed in Euridice by Jacopo Peri. In 1607 she composed her first original work, La Stiava, which is unfortunately presumed lost. Her La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina (1625), however, survives and is regarded as the earliest preserved opera composed by a woman. It also holds the distinction of being the first opera ever performed outside Italy, the birthplace of opera.

At the age of twenty, Francesca joined the Medici court, where she quickly became one of the leading figures of Italian musical life. Here she broadened her artistic scope, and her exceptional gifts as a singer, composer, teacher, and instrumentalist laid the foundation for a remarkable career. At one point, she was the highest-paid musician at the Florentine court.

Francesca received the commission to compose La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina from Maria Maddalena of Austria, Archduchess of Tuscany. The opera was written to celebrate the visit of Crown Prince Władysław Vasa of Poland. The libretto, by the court poet Ferdinando Saracinelli, is a free adaptation of Ludovico Ariosto’s chivalric epic Orlando Furioso (1516), while also incorporating elements from Matteo Maria Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato and Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata.

Saracinelli’s libretto intertwines an epic tale of chivalry with political events of both local and international significance. In true Baroque opera fashion, even heroes are allowed to be hesitant, vulnerable, humiliated, and corrected by powerful women of moral authority.

In Caccini’s opera, Alcina’s enchanting kingdom and beauty are revealed to be an illusion to which the knight Ruggiero, like so many before him, succumbs. His liberation can only come when the benevolent sorceress Melissa opens his eyes to reality and reminds him of his duties as a knight. Wrapped in the mythical Baroque world of sirens, monsters, and sea gods, where magic and seduction lend the story its fairy-tale atmosphere, the work invites us to reflect on our own relationships, our morality, and our longing for pleasure.

How can we survive as human beings in a world threatened by war and violence if, at the same time, we abandon sensuality, art, and joy?

It is a question as relevant today as it was when the work was first composed. Throughout the history of opera, women’s works reveal a continuous thread of exploration and redefinition of what opera can be. Following Caccini’s pioneering achievements came countless operas by women composers across Europe. Several of these remarkable works are featured in the anniversary concert Femina Forte.

Among them are the distinctly French musical language of Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre and Maria Margherita Grimani’s La decollazione di San Giovanni Battista (1715), which recounts the familiar biblical story of John the Baptist, imprisoned by King Herod and ultimately beheaded after Salome demands his head on a platter. Maria Antonia Walpurgis’s Il trionfo della fedeltà (1754) offers a more pastoral setting while remaining rich in the drama and virtuosity of opera seria. Maria Teresa Agnesi Pinottini’s L’Insubria consolata (1766) was composed for the betrothal celebrations of the Lombard princess Maria Ricciarda Beatrice d’Este and Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, demonstrating how closely politics and opera were intertwined.

Presenting works from the German, French, and Italian repertoires, this anniversary concert celebrates Den Andra Operan’s tenth anniversary—a decade devoted to exploration, passionate archival research, and the staging of extraordinary works. Perhaps we may now look forward to Caccini, Grimani, and Walpurgis finally receiving the recognition long afforded to Gluck, Mozart, and Wagner.

This summer’s festival also offers the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Wilhelmine of Bayreuth. Through a vivid portrait of a composer, cultural patron, and sister of the Swedish queen Louisa Ulrika, we encounter, among other works, her tragic opera Argenore (1740). Yet Wilhelmine’s contribution to the world of opera extended far beyond her own compositions. As Margravine, she transformed the small court of Bayreuth into a flourishing centre of music, philosophy, and the arts. At her initiative, the magnificent Margravial Opera House was built—today a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a lasting expression of an ambitious cultural vision.

This year’s focus on women’s opera is a declaration of love for the art form, a renewal of opera’s true history, and a glimpse of the treasures that still await rediscovery. It is also a reminder of what we lose when we persist in maintaining a narrow view of what belongs on our opera stages. To experience these works is to embark together on a journey of discovery, encountering groundbreaking masterpieces, music drama trembling with intensity, and librettos that offer fresh perspectives.

So let us remember how it all began. When Francesca Caccini composed La liberazione, the Florentine musical reforms were transforming European music. The emergence of the new style of solo singing marked the birth of opera as an art form, and in her opera Caccini masterfully combines recitative, aria, chorus, and richly coloured instrumental writing in a musical universe where women’s experiences are fully realised, self-evident, and profoundly inspiring.

The premiere took place on 3 February 1625 at the Villa di Poggio Imperiale in Florence in a lavishly staged production. It concluded with an extraordinary equestrian ballet performed by no fewer than twenty-four riders in the villa’s outer courtyard.

Three years after its premiere, La liberazione was performed in Warsaw and is widely regarded as the first Italian opera ever staged outside Italy. After nearly three centuries of obscurity, it was revived in Cologne in 1983 and has since been performed across Europe.

Now we welcome Caccini’s opera to Sweden and, like the hero Ruggiero, step out of the darkness of ignorance, free ourselves from misconceptions about the history of opera, and move together towards a brighter operatic future.

May the Confidencen Opera & Music Festival – FEMALE EDITION become the starting point of an operatic revolution. For it is not the history of opera that is unequal—it is the writing of history.

Bente Rolandsdotter
Artistic Director Den Andra Operan