‘Huelgas Ensemble’

Paul Van Nevel surprises us again. This time, he presents Francesca Caccini, a 17th-century Italian composer who was the first woman with an opera to her name. La liberazione di Ruggiero is the only one of her operas to have stood the test of time. Nearly four centuries later, its exploration of the relations between women and power and of what we now call gender issues has lost none of its topicality.