Performer: Anna Watkins

A rare chance to see the first extant opera written by a woman, Francesca Caccini's La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’ isola d’ Alcina. 

A riotous double bill of Pergolesi at the Boston Early Music Festival.

With Lully’s death in 1687 and Louis XIV’s increasing immersion in religious piety under the influence of Madame de Maintenon, the court ceased to exercise a strangle hold on opera.