LA CENERENTOLA

La cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo, is the outcome of a commission given to Rossini by the Teatro Valle in Rome. Papal censorship banned the planned work as immoral and the hasty solution was to set Charles Perrault’s world-famous fable, Cinderella, to music.

Rossini and Ferret replaced its traditional attributes and eliminated the magical and fabulous aspects of the original version by Perrault and Grimm: the cruel stepmother becomes a tyrannical stepfather, the grotesque Don Magnifico, unable to overcome the wounds from his past; the role of the de facto fairy is played by Alidoro, the prince’s tutor Don Ramiro, who, in disguise, detects the goodness of Angelina, the Cinderella humiliated by the ungraceful stepsisters Clorinda and Tisbe; the prince has swapped his clothes for those of his squire Dandini; Angelina immediately falls in love; Don Magnifico and his daughters are ridiculed by Dandini and the prince; the happy ending includes everyone’s absolution.

Written for the Roman Carnival in 1871, in only 24 days, the young Rossini, with 19 operas behind him (including Il barbiere di Siviglia), wrote a score full of energy with its famous “crescendos” that shake up the dramatic tension.

The most innovative aspects of La Cenerentola and the success it soon achieved – it premiered in Barcelona in 1818, a year after its premiere –emerge from the violent contrast between the main character’s personality, the sentimentality of the plot and the characters populating it from Rosini’s buffo world. From Angelina’s melancholy opening song: “Una volta c’era un re”, we hear a serious opera heroine with extraordinary vocal virtuosity.

A veritable storm of great music, full of humour served up by the best Rossini singers of the moment with production by Emma Dante, that is delicate, full of subtle nuances, but which also has a sombre and burlesque melancholy. A dramma giocoso replete with lessons for modern-day society.

Javier Camarena

Tenor. His voice has been applauded for his interpretation of many composers, including Bellini, Bizet, Donizetti, Haydn, Mozart, Rossini and Verdi. In 2014, he caught the attention of the entire opera world when he sang the aria of Ramiro (La cenerentola) at The Metropolitan Opera in New York for two consecutive nights. He made his debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in the 2012/13 season with L'elisir d'amore

Ga Lle Arquez

Mezzo-soprano. After graduating from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, she made her debut in 2013 at the Opéra Bastille in Paris playing Zerlina (Don Giovanni) in Michael Haneke's production, under the musical direction of Philippe Jordan. Since then, she has been invited to sing in major opera houses around the world. This is her debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.

Carlos Chausson

Bass-baritone. He studied at the Escuela Superior de Canto in Madrid with Lola Rodríguez Aragón. He began his career in San Diego singing Masetto (Don Giovanni), and since then he has sung with the main companies in the United States and later in the main opera houses around the world. He made his debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Tosca in the 1984/85 season.

Stage director. Born in Palermo, she is an actress, stage director, film director and playwright. Trained at the Accademia Nazionale di arte Drammatica Silvio d'Amico in Rome, in 1999 she founded her own company, Sud Costa Occidentale, with which she focuses on avant-garde theatre and social protest theatre, with which she performs her own texts. This is her debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.

26 AND 27 MAY 2024—