All is ashes!

It was good but it didn’t convince me.

I suppose that bel canto opera buffo is a taste which appeals to those dedicated opera enthusiasts who were yelling their appreciation in the performance of La Cenerentola by Rossini in el Gran Teatre del Liceu last night. Not me!

The story of Cinderella as told by the popular fabulists was not the narrative which was chosen by Rossini´s librettist, Jacopo Ferretti, who used a number of sources as well as the Perrault fairy story. The end result gives a story which dispenses with the magical element of the tale and which emphasises the moral aspects with the comforting fallacy that resolute and undervalued virtue will be rewarded.

The aspect which does not fit into the ‘realism’ of the opera in this production was the use of the rats.

Eight dancers in rat costumes with metallic rat faces were present throughout the production from their function as Cinderella’s rodent friends while she was sweeping at the start of the production and they reverted to their original positions at the end of the opera when we were given a rehash of the tired old convention of “it had all been a dream!” Although they were a magical element in the story as they stood on two feet after Alidoro had prophesied that Cinderella’s fortunes would change and often moved scenery and props, they were not as incongruous as you might think and were moving points of interest throughout.

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Although a severely moralistic opera, this is supposed to be a comic opera too and the costumes (Joan Guillén) reflected the humour of the conception. The fairy tale period costumes with flared coats and braiding made the singers look live moving chess pieces while the severe dress of Alidoro of black with silver stars gave him an appearance of a Masonic magician and indeed his manipulative overview of what was happening seemed closer to ‘The Magic Flute’ than Rossini.

The set looked convention enough at the opening of the opera, a large chimney dominated space with a flight of stairs stage right leading to a gallery stretching the width of the stage. This drab (quite fitting for a decaying castle) set developed steadily with the flying of the chimney revealing impossibly tall doors and the transformation for the palace by the sudden illumination of floor and back flats.

The coup de theatre that remains in the memory was the facilitation of the ‘disappearance’ of Cinderella after the ball by her walking through a flown mirrored flat which had a series of pivoted doors. As she pushed her way through the mirror the doors closed leaving Don Ramiro (Juan Diego Flórez) and Dandini (David Menéndez) staring at their own reflections: simple and very effective. When the mirrored doors were fully revolved they formed a giant picture of the prince’s coach with a practical window to show the passenger. This painted image was augmented by a model used by the rats to illustrate the coach’s accident and by shadow images to show the journey.

The direction was competent and effective with a few moments of inspired visual creativity. Act II was more interesting that the (overlong) first half and showed defter touches of confident direction.

But the singing takes pride of place in this sometimes sententious tale and the quality of the sound that we heard last night was impressive. With the exception of Don Magnifico (Alfonso Antoniozzi) who had replaced Bruno de Simone who was indisposed, the whole of the cast and chorus gave a rousing and effective rendition of the piece. Alfonso Antoniozzi was a more than capable comic actor but his voice lacked the power to make his portrayal fully effective.

Alidoro (Simón Orfila) was a commanding presence and his voice was deep and resonant. Dandini (David Menédez) was a competent and effective foil to the prince, in which role Juan Diego Flórez gave a show stopping performance in the second act which had a long and deserved ovation; Chlorinda (Christina Obregón) and Tisbe (Itxaro Mentxaka) were competent in their rather thankless roles, but Angelina (Joyce DiDonato) was the star.

Throughout her performance she had the quiet, but commanding dignity that the role demands and her voice was strong, assured and sweet. She rose, effortlessly, to the demands of the music and stole the show at the end of Act II. She almost made me believe that bel canto was worth listening to!

An enjoyable evening (though too stuffy, why didn’t the Liceu put the air conditioning on?) with an inventive production giving a colourful stage for superlative singing.

Meanwhile back in the so-called real world by recently reinvigorated teaching career seems to be drawing to a close. My attitude towards lunchtime duties (I’m agin’ ‘em!) would appear to put me on a collision course with the owner of the school. At the moment, as a concession, we only do four lunchtime duties a week! As we have to take the pupils down to lunch (after ensuring that they are all wearing their smocks!) and as we have to collect the pupils from the patio (school yard) to bring them up for registration and as a duty is half an hour, it means that teachers usually have less than twenty minutes as their lunch ‘hour.’ I find this unacceptable and I have stated that I will not continue to complete lunchtime duties after the end of this month.

Compromise appears to be difficult so it would appear that my career in the school is going to be limited to the next two weeks, but I intend to enjoy them as much as possible. I still have ideas that I want to implement in my classroom!

Such a professional!