★★★★☆
Ever since a production of Rossini’s La Cenerentola set in a 1970s American TV studio, I have awaited the rise of this opera’s curtain — if there is a curtain — with some trepidation. Where on earth would poor Cinderella live now?
The answer in Stuart Barker’s lively show for British Youth Opera seems to be a cockeyed house left over from the expressionist film sets of The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. Meanwhile, to judge from the amount of textured mock gold leaf, the Prince’s palace is situated in Vienna, lovingly decorated by Gustav Klimt. As for the phalanx of courtiers and males, they breathe the air of Victorian Britain, land of tonsorial rodomontade. Bek Palmer, the designer, obviously had a lot of