The Wicked Weeping Woman: A Reconsideration of Women's Agency in the Lament

Drawing on philosophical frameworks of agency, autonomy, and vulnerability as developed by feminist opera scholars, this paper examines the use lament in expression female unhappiness through a comparison representations sorceress Alcina Francesca Caccini’s La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina, George Frideric Handel’s Alcina. This begins exploring how Alcina’s lament, “Ferma, ferma crudele,” exposes her journey anger, confusion, finally grief over lost love. vulnerable inspires another woman to join lamenting, an act which instills with greater emotional agency. The then considers Alcina, suggesting that his aria, “Ombre Pallide,” functions rather than invocation aria. presence characteristics following abandonment musical conventions aria see gain freedom autonomy without self-destructive magical powers, showing loss power is actually liberation. Ultimately, these considerations question existing assumptions composers reject order lend agency their women characters, create space for nuanced understandings women’s