La cenerentola
A personal view of La cenerentola - Martin Lloyd-Evans, Production Director
Cenerentola, Cinderella, Cendrillon, Ashenputtel… the story of the downtrodden girl condemned to a life of servitude has found its voice throughout western culture. The most popular version, one suspects, is Walt Disney’s, full of magic, mice and pumpkins. Rossini sought to abandon such frivolous magic in his rendition – losing both the fairy godmother and the charmed carriage that takes Cinders to the ball. He saw a story of families and step-families, of fate and of the transforming goodness of selfless love. The magic he saved for the music. Arguably the composer’s most accomplished work, Cenerentola reveals the finest integration of music and drama in the bel canto style. Characters driven to emotional extremes express their feelings through energetic and demanding coloratura (Rossini wasn’t paid by the quaver, tempting though it is to believe so). When the story threatens to engulf all of the characters on stage, they break into the sort of wild and exciting ensembles for which Rossini became famous. On these occasions he would permit himself the luxury of abandoning dramatic flow entirely to explore, through exhilarating music, the internal chaos suffered by the protagonists.

Perhaps one should point out that Cinderella is not the central character’s name, but her nickname, ‘little girl of the ashes’. This suggests the way in which she is seen by her step-sisters – pretty much as a slave. The relationships chez Don Magnifico draw on all our prejudices about the workings of the step-family. With the passing of the girls’ mother there seems to have been a switch in family culture from ‘healthy’, selfless love to a sort of expedient indulgence of the chosen few. The biological daughters of the father are heavily favoured over the inherited step-daughter, with the father’s loss of love twisting, in time, to a sadness and bitterness which expresses itself in abuse and cruelty. Clorinda and Tisbe, seeking paternal approval, have joined in his habit of cruelty. The three of them, trapped in this emotional vortex, have no means of escape and have become caricatures of themselves. Cinderella’s only means of escape is to dream of another life and that, it seems to me, is what Rossini has written – the little ash-girl’s dream. In it, she reaches for a wholeness she believes to be her right (or ‘fate’, as the eighteenth century would have it). This wholeness is attained not by revenge and violence, but by true love and forgiveness as suggested by the alternative title of the piece ‘Goodness Triumphs’. Indeed, it is her forgiveness that is the key that unlocks the frozen hearts of her step-family..

Interestingly, despite his stated attempts to take the magic out of the story, Rossini hasn’t been able to forge events without retaining echoes of the supernatural. Alidoro, apparently Prince Ramiro’s tutor, does seem to pop up at the most particular moments – nearly always at points of extreme significance for Cinderella’s fate. His use of the word ‘daughter’ is pointed, and hints at a deeper connection to her than appearances would suggest. And he does arrange for a storm to engineer the final meeting of Ramiro and Cinderella. Yet he is not omnipotent. The fact that Dandini falls for Cinderella’s charms would seem to challenge him to breaking point.

So Rossini, despite himself, has written a magical opera – it has a surface which glitters and thrills, and is crafted to make us laugh – but one which hides a darker and more painful core.