Giacomo Rossini (1792-1868) composed La Cenerentola in 24 days. The magician of the opera premiered this title in Rome in 1817 based on the popular tale collected by Charles Perrault. After a year, what would be his last opera buffa, written after Il barbiere di Siviglia, was already being performed on La Rambla, at the Teatro de la Santa Creu. Barcelona looked forward to each new title. And now, more than two centuries later, it returns to the Liceu – from May 18 to June 1 – with a cast of bells led by tenor Javier Camarena and mezzo Maria Kataeva under the baton of Giacomo Sagripanti.
The installation comes from the Rome Opera and is signed by Emma Dante, who, inspired by American pop surrealism – beautiful and disturbing baroque fables that make you think that everything can end in a nightmare -, shows the disturbing part of this violence which hovers over the innocent Angelina, the stepdaughter reduced to a servant who cannot even afford to dream, and over the prince Don Ramiro, who pretends to be a vassal while his servant disguises himself as a prince. The mask as an opportunity to be someone else, as the artistic director of the Liceu, Víctor García de Gomar, points out.
Jacopo Ferreti’s libretto is from an enlightened age and does not contain the supernatural magic of the tale: there is no glass shoe or pumpkin transformed into a float (only the prince’s float). But it is rich in humorous twists, and the plot is armed musically as befits the Rossini tradition, fast-paced and full of rhythm. The gestures of complicity follow, now snorts now serious, underscoring the humorous and dark aspects of the story. It actually starts in D minor, with Angelina singing a sad song. And it won’t even have an aria, because the important thing is not the story but the atmosphere, the intimacy, the innocent character.
“There have been adaptations of fantastic tales like this, from those of the Grimm brothers to those of Disney that have appeared as candy, but originally they had a morality, a lesson understood in the context of the time – said Camarena yesterday presenting the production These are stories that were not the way we tell them now, which is why it’s worth investigating. Because this part of the love that triumphs over everything that is La Cenerentola by Rossini responds to the utopian part that we have as a society, but we must remember the part of sacrifice that it involves. And here the scenic proposal is very interesting, with these touches that make it not only magical, but reflective. The opera must be a reflection of our own reality and invite us to be part of some change”, he says.
Dante remembers that the title brings us closer to the question of violence within the domestic walls: “This arrogance, the abuse of the female condition – he says – which even today has not been resolved in some families, and I am thinking of the south of Italy, where there are no Cinderellas but many situations of domestic violence”.
Sagripanti, for his part, understands that Dante brings his experiences to the stage, “but my way of approaching the title is more neutral, more absolute, from the message in general, whether you are a man or a woman. As a musician I don’t want to focus on this question, since the interpretation takes a dangerous path and you can no longer extract the absolute from Rossini’s music. I like to leave it abstract”.
The alternative cast stars Carol García and Sunnyboy Dladla, and is completed by Florian Sempey and Carles Pachon (Dandini), Paolo Bordogna and Pablo Ruiz (Don Magnifico) and Erwin Schrott and Marko Mimica as Alidoro, a deus ex machina who gives to the opera the most serious part.
