Cinderela by Rossini, De (2022/2023), Dirigido por Michael Spenceley, Jenny Miller, Regente Laurence Panter, St Mary in the Castle, Hastings, Reino Unido

Rossini’s delicious and charmingly comic La Cenerentola, or Cinderella, is a more humanist than magic tale. The Prince of the fairytale realm, Ramiro, is seeking a woman “innocent and good”, and orders his court advisor, Alidoro, to disguise himself as a tramp and test out the ladies in Don Magnifico’s house. Here we find that only Cinderella will help the poor beggar – her sisters and father are far too self centred, conceited and generally on the make to take time for a vagabond. It is this same Alidoro who will kit out Cinders in all the finery she needs for the ball, and help her escape before her family detect her. She leaves behind a bracelet rather than the traditional shoe, and this bracelet will lead to her reunion with her Prince. Meanwhile, the sisters and father have been further deceived; the Prince and his valet Dandini had swapped places, and they had spent the opera oleaginously making up to a mere servant. In our version, we update the comedy. Cinderella’s sisters and their status-obsessed dad trash the earth’s resources, are over-preoccupied with social media influencers, and generally exhibit callous indifference to their environment. As the two sisters are heavily preoccupied with their roles as influencers on SM, and their idiotic iPhone messages are exposed.