This season we will organise the opera of La Calisto by Francesco Cavalli. Yala Music invited Marcio da Silva, who has a very nice Calisto up his sleeve, for this project. Jörn Boysen is our musical director and the instrumental ensemble will be of his choice.
The opera will be cut (also some roles are cut), because it’s too long. The total will be around 2x 45 minutes.
In the end we need 7 roles, 14 with double cast.
La Calisto, Diana, Linfea, Giunone: Soprano
Endimione: Mezzo Soprano
Giove/ Giove in Diana: Bas with good falsetto
Mercurio: Bass/Bariton
NOTE: At the time of writing, Calisto and Linfea are already fully cast. For all other parts we still need 1 person per part.
The story for this cut of La Calisto in a nutshell:
La Calisto, a priestess in the temple of Diana, thinks she met Diana and falls in love with her. But this was actually Giove in disguise. Mercurio advised Giove to do so, to persuade Calisto to sleep with him. Later when Calisto meets the real Diana and makes the ‘moves’ on her, Diana sends her away from the forest as a punishment for her hussy-like behaviour.
Although Diana is not a stranger to Love, she is in love with the shepherd Endimione, but she swore an oath never to give in to such feelings.
Linfea, the younger nimf only wishes she would once fall in love and find a partner. Endimione, the depressed shepherd, is being brought back to life since he fell in love with Diana and only wants to be with her. Diana suggests to Endimione that they leave and hide away on a remote island.
Giunione , wife of Giove, lures Calisto into the woods where she punishes her for sleeping with her husband. She changes Calisto into a bear.
Giove, unable to stop it, asks for a minor change of Calisto’s faith: When Calisto and her son die, they will become zodiac signs in the sky.
(Giove sings also the role Giove in Diana, for this role his falsetto will be used)
How does it work?
The idea for this project is that every singer pays EUR 800,- from which all BASIC NEEDED things can be paid to make this production and get everything rolling. (Think about: Rehearsal space, stage director, instrumentalists, instrument hire, performance location, marketing, repetitor, costumes, set, etc.etc.)
The total project takes 13 days.
2 Days in February: Saturday the 8th and 15th. Both days from 10:00 to 17:00 in The Hague.
1 day in May 2025: Saturday the 17th from 10:00 to 13:00
These days are very important because these are only for musical rehearsals and time to work 1-1 with Jörn.
Staging rehearsals:
12 to 21 of september 2025
First 3 days are purely music and traffic on stage in The Hague and Utrecht with Jörn and Meneka.
15,16,17 are staging rehearsals in The Hague with Jörn and Marcio
18,19 are BO and general dress rehearsals in Zeewolde, Flevoland, at the concert hall De Verbeelding, where the performances will be too.
20 and 21 are the last general dress , 1st performance and 2nd performance days.
Rehearsal days are usually from 10:00 to 18:00 with breaks. A schedule will be made so if you have some issues , tell us and we will try to work around it. And you also have a double, so thats handy. Attendance at the BO’s are necessary though!
There are 2 final shows (one for each cast) in de Verbeelding, Zeewolde.
This project means the cast has to live in the Netherlands. Or willing to travel to all rehearsal and show days in the Netherlands on their own costs.
What is different from other similar projects?
From February to May 2025, we share the responsibility to help sell the final product, our opera, to other places so that every singer can get all or part of their initial investment back. Therefore, we aim to invite singers with good ideas on where the opera can go to have more shows from september 2025 to december 2025 and who want to help out organizing this. We aim to have 4 to 8 shows in these few months. That is a lot and costs a lot of extra work. Precisely because of this we look for people who want to be part of a group, working and learning together and are not afraid of doing something extra, making some extra hours helping out to get this all working the way we want it. If you have a good opportunity in mind to put on this show, let’s do it and make it happen, together as a group.
We are very open to your ideas getting this show on the road after its initial premiere in Zeewolde.
At Yala Music Foundation we will continue to apply for funding for this project, I already sent out the first application a few days ago, but the subsidy landscape is pretty tough now. You shouldn’t underestimate it. With the new government, I fear it will get worse, therefore the initial personal investment of the singers in the opera project is necessary to even get started.
If you are interested in joining this Calisto operaproject, please send an email to: join.yalamusic@yalamusic
And send us a a video of you singing any kind of baroque aria.