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Organization

Singer

Tenor

Maxim Mironov

Don Ramiro

Michele Angelini

Baritone

Vito Priante

Dandini

Filippo Fontana

Bass

Carlo Lepore

Don Magnifico

Soprano

Rafaela Albuquerque

Clorinda

Mezzo-soprano

Sara Rocchi

Tisbe

Teresa Iervolino

Angelina

Vasilisa Berzhanskaya

Adrian Sâmpetrean

Alidoro

Gabriele Sagona

Conductor

Stefano Montanari

Stage director

Emma Dante

Set designer

Carmine Maringola

Costume designer

Vanessa Sannino

Lighting designer

Cristian Zucaro

Choreographer

Manuela Lo Sicco

Chorus master

Roberto Gabbiani

Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

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CHORUS AND BALL OF THE OPERA OF ROME

Orchestra

Orchestra del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

Italian

La Cenerentola -  (Cinderella)

Rome

Italy

Teatro Costanzi (Teatro dell'Opera di Roma)

This is Gioachino Rossini’s Cinderella, neither brothers Grimm’s nor Perrault’s: all characters are flesh-and-blood humans, and, although this version hints somehow at the traditional fairy tale, magic is totally absent. The librettist Jacopo Ferretti justifies this choice in the foreword, but, beyond reasons of stage’s inadequacy, Vatican censorship, or spectators' taste, we know that Rossini himself wanted it strongly: that of “Angiolina or Goodness Triumphant” (aka “Cinderella”) had to be a realistic, human story.
The only mysterious element is Alidoro’s character, replacing the fairy godmother. He’s not a magician, but a sage, the fate-decider of the story, who claims to be inspired by a Supreme Being and acts as a guardian angel (his name means ”golden wings”).
There are also other significant changes:
the replacement of the stepmother with a stepfather (Don Magnifico), which enables his “basso buffo caricato” role; 
the use of the perennial literary and operatic device of disguise and recognition, a hallmark of opera buffa, but here with also moral suggestions: so Prince Ramiro/his valet Dandini; a beggar/Alidoro; Cinderella/the veiled lady; 
any glass-slipper’s lost at the ball: Cinderella wants to be searched and known and loved for what she is. She herself, unrecognized In her new guise more than concealed by the veil, gives Ramiro, whom she still thinks a squire, one of two matching bracelets, the tools of their final, reciprocal recognition.
Libretti written for Rossini's comic operas are often invoked as an emblem of humor and verbal acrobatics. Compared to the rigorous scope of the serious genre, “opera buffa” was the assigned and privileged place for language experimentation and stylistic trials: parodies of serious melodrama and its mannerisms, blending, shifting between antithetical elements (as archaisms and neologisms, courtly and popular forms), caricatural exaggeration of the pathetic, farfetched display of bellicosity, comic hyperboles, zoomorphic metaphors, fast-paced syllabication, onomatopoeias, alliterations, lists... All this you will find also in Ferretti’s libretto for this playful drama.
Especially his parody of courtly language is hilarious, full of wits and puns… not always easy for a translator to convey!
In order to snare Prince Ramiro, who is searching for a wife, the declining Baron Don Magnifico imposes on himself and on his daughters (Cinderella’s stepsisters) polished manners and speech. But their language, trying to sound over-refined and sophisticated, ends up being ridiculously stilted, littered with macaronic Latin and Gallicisms, and inexorably stuffed with howlers (often overlooked by some not particularly zealous translators, or even improvidently amended by overzealous other ones). Ironically, all that bragging is done towards the valet Dandini, who arrives disguised as the Prince, equally speaking in a pretentious manner, venturing into laughable hyperboles, and falling into gross blunders… and some accidental double entendre!
Needless to say, Rossini brilliantly suites music to text, perfectly balancing comedy and sentimentality: masterful is his orchestral scoring, with the skillful use of his signature crescendo; masterful is his vocal writing, with the florid style ornamentation of bel canto, and the challenging passages of “sillabato stretto” (patter-singing); masterful are the intricately patterned ensemble pieces.

Orchestra and chorus of Teatro dell’Opera di Roma
Chorus master: Roberto Gabbiani
Conductor: Alejo Pérez
Director: Emma Dante
Set decorations: Carmine Maringola
Costumes: Vanessa Sannino
Lighting: Cristian Zucaro
Choreography: Manuela Lo Sicco

CAST:
RAMIRO: Juan Francisco Gatell
DANDINI: Vito Priante
DON MAGNIFICO: Alessandro Corbelli
CLORINDA: Damiana Mizzi
TISBE: Annunziata Vestri
ANGELINA/CENERENTOLA: Serena Malfi
ALIDORO: Ugo Guagliardo

staging of 2015

Cinderella by Rossini, From (2019/2019), Directed by Emma Dante,, Conductor Stefano Montanari, Teatro Costanzi (Teatro dell'Opera di Roma), Rome, Italy

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