La Cenerentola

Playful drama in two acts
su libretto di Jacopo Ferretti

Rossini’s Cinderella is configured as a work of disguise and transformation, both in history and in musical motifs. The most miraculous transformation of all is, of course, the one to which the protagonist, Angelina, is subject: the naive girl who, when the curtain rises, in a world of comic opera characters gradually becomes a mature and regal woman.

Teatro dell’Opera di Roma production

PRESENTING PARTNER

CONDUCTOR

DIRECTOR

“In my staging there is a happy ending in the middle. Throughout the show I tell a mechanical world that surrounds Cinderella. I place beside her, to serve with her, mechanical dolls with a key in the back, like music boxes, which she loads so that they come alive and help her not only with housework, but also to overcome loneliness. They prove to be the only good creatures who stand next to her, who keep her company. Even the prince disguised as a servant will have his following of “dolls” dressed like him, as if the good characters somehow did not have the opportunity to dialogue, to communicate with the rest of the world which instead is blind and deaf, treacherous and evil . So these two characters, who are the only good ones in the whole work, are somehow surrounded by mechanical “sweetbreads” that accompany them on their journey towards love. Then when Cinderella and her prince – who in fact in all the work for her is her servant – fall in love with her, even their dolls and dolls will have an idyll of love. All this is clearly understood visually, because Cinderella and her servants are dressed in the same way, and Don Ramiro himself and his dolls. From Vendetta and Forgiveness in a Modern Fairy Tale.

Emma Dante

Extract from Interview with Emma Dante, by Giuseppe Distefano
Courtesy of the Teatro dell’Opera Foundation in Rome

CAST

COMPOSER