Francesco Cavalli

African Dreamers

AFRICAN DREAMERS is a documentary on five African girls at a significant transition in their lives. Five young women who live in four African countries that so many people leave, in the search for a better life. Wangare and Grace, Deborah, Marveille and Mariam have decided to stay and try to change their difficult lives. They fight against prejudice, old beliefs, violence and ancient cultures that far too often violate the universal human rights. Through dusty roads, shanty towns and breathtaking landscapes, their stories have approached us. Faced with life’s problems, big and small, each one of them is trying to reach her dream. A dream of redemption.

Cavalli: Eliogabalo

Systematically overturning accepted morals, Elagabalus dresses men as women, and names women to the Senate, favours sinning servants and humiliates generals. Baroque and carnivalesque, Eliogabalo is not, however, an opera that advocates a return to order. Leonardo García Alarcón, a finder of baroque gems, and Thomas Jolly are careful not to transform Eliogabalo into a sublime icon who would abase virtue. On the contrary, the conductor and young director, who are presenting their first production for the Paris Opera, accept the character’s contradictions and ambiguities

La Didone

Live performance by Les Arts Florissants at the Théâtre de Caen, recorded on 18 Octorber 2011. "One of the earliest operas deserving of the name, Didone is our first surviving musical version of the famous episode in Virgil's Aeneid where the Trojan Hero loves and then cruelly leaves the noble Dido." — from the DVD back cover