After Monteverdi, Cavalli was Venice’s leading composer. His strikingly expressive La Calisto is based on the mythical story from Greek legend. This is a comic yet poignant tale of twisted relationships between gods, women and men, in which Juno, jealous of Jupiter’s desire, turns Calisto into a bear.

La Calisto is our Young Artist production for 2019, offering world-class performance opportunities to artists at the beginning of their careers. Conductor Lesley Anne Sammons and director Mathilde Lopez bring life to this rarely-performed brilliant work. This new orchestration by Lesley Anne is rescored for the Barefoot Band of clarinet (Andrew Sparling), accordion (Milos Milivojevic), harpsichord, double bass (Lucy Mulgan) and recorders (Evelyn Nallen).