The Second Cycle, titled “Active Pasts” and curated by distinguished conductor Markellos Chryssicos, is grounded in the belief that Early Music is not an outdated fossil but an active field of listening and reinterpretation that continues to generate new meanings even today. In this context, new commissions from Greek composers, jazz interpretations of Bach’s variations, electronic sounds, and sound and lighting design create a seamless artistic setting in which the historical material is reactivated.

Long before he became a prominent figure in letters and was admitted to the French Academy, François-Timoléon de Choisy was dressed as a little girl by his mother to entertain the brother of Louis XIV, later known as Philippe, Duke of Orléans. Long before she became a singer for Lully at the Paris Opera, Jully d’Aubigny made her living by giving sword-fighting demonstrations dressed as a man. Against the backdrop of the French Grand Siècle, the adventurous and humorous stories of these two figures come to life on stage, through the literature and pulp fiction of the time.