La Cenerentola

The story of Cinderella is well enough known. Since Charles Perrault made use of the already widely known material in his 1697 collection of fairy tales, it has repeatedly inspired representatives of all genres to ever new portrayals. In Gioachino Rossini’s masterpiece »La Cenerentola« premiered in Teatro Valle in Rome on 25 January 1817, the poor Angelina must endure vexations meted out by her stepsisters Tisbe and Clorinda as well as from her stepfather Don Magnifico. But when the prince Don Ramiro switches roles with his valet Dandini and starts looking for a bride, Angelina’s sad fate begins to change!

With »La Cenerentola« Rossini and his librettist Jacopo Ferretti faced up to the challenge of reworking children’s material for a largely adult public and transferring the story from the realm of fairy tales to the reality of everyday life. To this end the fairy tale-like supernatural elements of the original were largely cut out and, not least of all, by the figure of the wise philosopher Alidoro who, taking the place of the fairy godmother, weaves in profoundly humanistic ideals. There thus came about a work that avails itself of a need for entertainment as well as a desire for shrewd reflection by the game of confusion between prince and valet, on the one hand, and by the parallel presence of bourgeois and princely traditions as well as of humility and smugness. In Brigitte Fassbaender’s staging, after her much lauded Munich directing debut with »Don Pasquale« at Cuvilliéstheater, one of Rossini’s most profound scores becomes an opera event for young and old at the same venue.

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