[2] His visibility greatly increased after he directed and introduced the cutting-edge Cirque du Soleil production Mystère at the Treasure Island hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The shows Dragone created with Cirque du Soleil had single-handedly brought the contemporary circus movement into the mainstream of American entertainment.
[6] Franco Dragone was in charge of the opening ceremony show for the 2010 South American Games that took place in Medellín, Colombia on 19 March 2010.
In 2010, building on his previous experience using aquatic stages in O and Le Rêve,[1] Dragone directed a Macau-based show entitled The House of Dancing Water in the City of Dreams.
[13] The House of Dancing Water is the largest aquatic production in the world, and was developed by Dragone in Belgium over 19 months, with the permanent theater taking five years to build.
The theater arena has a 40-meter-high steel trussed space (30 meters clear) providing generous height to the show's display of acrobatics.
[13] On 29 March 2012, Dragone was awarded a doctor honoris causa degree for general merits by the University of Antwerp, in recognition of his innovative and cosmopolitan approach to theatre.
[16] In 2012 Dragone's business group came under investigation by Belgian authorities for "serious and organized international tax offenses" and money laundering.
In a press conference addressing the investigation in January 2013, Dragone claimed that the purpose of setting up this international structure had not been to commit fraud, but to avoid double or triple taxation by different countries.
[9][17] On January 12, 2024, after 12 years of investigations, Dragone was posthumously found not guilty of all charges of fiscal fraud and was completely exonerated.
[18][19] In early 2013, Dragone produced,[1] created and directed Story of a Fort, Legacy of a Nation, a show that ran from 28 February through 9 March 2013 as the centrepiece event of the Qasr al-Hosn festival in Abu Dhabi.
[25] In 2016, Dragone directed a new show featuring Russian pop icon Philipp Kirkorov[26] called Я (Ya, lit.
The show involved waterfalls, fires, motorcyclists spinning inside a suspended metal sphere, acrobatics into water, and other features.
[6] Dragone objected to comparisons of his work to Salvador Dalí or Federico Fellini, noting that he traveled frequently and had been influenced by a great many painters.
In his search to "make the invisible visible" with his theater, he cited the director Peter Brook as an influence[6] adding, "With time and experience I evolve.
For example La Perle, showcased in a new theater of the same name, his first permanent show in the Middle East, included stunts such as "performers flying across the stage at 15 kilometers an hour before diving from heights of 25 meters into the 860-square-meter pool and seemingly disappearing, only to return from land seconds later."
According to CNN, the stage was "an engineering feat, holding a colossal 2.7 million liters of recycled water—enough to fill an Olympic pool—which can be drained in less than a minute for land-based exploits.