Apollo and Dafne review: Gods shine on timeless tale Weâre sorry, this service is currently unavailable. Please try again later. Dismiss By Peter McCallum Save Normal text size â â â â Max Riebl as Cephalo with Alexandra Oomens as Aurora. Credit:Brett Boardman Seventeenth century composer Francesco Cavalliâs music captures the freshness of a new expressive style at the birth of opera. There is a new harnessing of the sensuality of the voice, glittering transparency of instrumental sound animated from within by ornamental figurations and rhythms that take their spring from dance steps not previously written down in such detail. The plots, built around the amorous foibles of gods and mortals, were often judged non-serious by modernist critics, yet todayâs age of celebrity culture and reality TV has a different appreciation of the absurd.