(Photo: G Schied) Händel’s “Alcina,” first performed in London in 1735 and based on episodes from Ariosto’s “Orlando Furioso” (1532), ranks among the composer’s supreme achievements. Far more than a succession of dazzling da capo arias, it is a profound meditation on love’s capacity to delude, possess and ultimately destroy. On the enchanted island of the sorceress Alcina, men who {…}