In Aix-en-Provence, Cavalli's sparkling "Calisto" is invited to the century of libertinage

The Théâtre de l'Archevêché, which hosted Francesco Cavalli's La Calisto outdoors on the evening of Monday, July 7, surprised the spectators of the Aix-en-Provence Festival in shirts and backless dresses, the most cautious being glad they had brought their down jackets. On stage, on the contrary, the erotic thermometer was at its highest. It is in the licentious world of Choderlos de Laclos's Dangerous Liaisons that the Dutch director, Jetske Mijnssen, transposed the "dramma per musica" from Ovid's Metamorphoses around one of Jupiter's many love episodes. Moving from the 17th ^century to that of the Enlightenment but also of libertinage, the synopsis invites us to do so if we accept that Juno's antechamber is also that of the Marquise de Merteuil.

Jupiter as Viscount Valmont, a lover of fresh nymphs? Why not. He won't hesitate to don the bubbling pannier skirts of Diana (incidentally, his own daughter) to seduce the tender and sensual Calisto, a mix of the prudish Madame de Tourvel and the young, depraved Cécile de Volanges. Around them, Pan and his cronies (Sylvain and Satirino) won't hesitate to take revenge on poor Endymion, whom Diana prefers over them. Squeezed into his oversized ruff, the tender simpleton in yellow and green striped stockings has something of a Pierrot from a commedia dell'arte.

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