A piece based on Cavalli's Gli amore e di Dafne by director Beatriz Catani. 

Gli amori d'Apollo e di Dafne is the second opera by Monteverdi's pupil Francesco Cavalli. Written in 1640, it is a pastoral fable, based on Ovid's Metamporphoses, in which the young nymph Daphne turns herself into a bay tree in order to escape the lusty attentions of the god Apollo. Cavalli wanted to explore the eroticism of the age, and found in Busenello a librettist who gave the story of Apollo and Daphne deeper meaning, not least because it looks at the relationships between gods and mortals. Aurora, Tithonus, Cephalus, Procis, Philena, Pan and Syrinx, all gods, demigods and nymphs are connected to each other in a web of relationships and stories. Eventually Pan, the god of love and lust, tells Apollo to break off a few of Daphne's branches and make a crown that will celebrate his love. Busenello, who later wrote L'incoronazione di Poppea, has written a modern libretto using parallel action and fragmentation that feels more like modern cinema. Unity of time and place make way for a concern with action and development. Director Beatriz Catani has further emphasized the passage of time and human vulnerability: "because even love, which frees people, cannot withstand the march of time." The metamorphosis of time and place are central in this production, and give the characteristic transformations of baroque theatre a new meaning.  

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