Rossini delights at Nevill Holt
Photo credit: Genevieve Girling
Rossini’s Cenerentola is Cinderella, but with the wicked step-mother as a bumptious, arrogant step-father (Don Magnifico), and the fairy godmother as the prince’s tutor and master of philosophy (Alidoro). The libretto is based on Perrault’s fairy tale, but with all mythical and supernatural elements from the story eliminated, turning it into something of a household comedy.
It’s wonderful fun, and in the nineteenth century rivalled his Barber of Seville for popularity. The starring role is for a coloratura mezzo, but with the demise of that type of voice the number of performances diminished. After a strong revival at Glyndebourne in the early 1950s it has again justified its place in the standard repertoire.
Congratulations to Nevill Holt Opera in Leicestershire for a joyously silly staging designed by Simon Wells, with excellent lighting by Kevin Treacy. Apart from the seven principal singers, Owen Horsley’s production uses a chorus of six young men in Beatles haircuts who occasionally danced, and otherwise moved in and out of the action. Fun, if occasionally overdone.
As Don Magnifico, Grant Doyle was superb. He provided vocal gravitas to a role that can sometimes be played too much for laughs, and his incorrigible and suitably pompous stage presence was a delight. Little wonder that his daughters, Clorinda and Tisbe (excellently sung by Lorena Paz Nieto and Nancy Holt) are such snooty brats. Alidoro who introduces the princely young Don Ramiro (Aaron Godfrey-Mayes) to this frightful household was strongly portrayed by Trevor Eliot Bowes as a clever schemer. Looking almost like a Dracula double from Transylvania, he has sussed out the household while disguised as a poor beggar, and is now contriving a love match for Don Ramiro with the homely looking Angelina of Grace Durham.
Angelina’s nasty stepsisters are easily tricked by the role reversal of Don Ramiro with his valet Dandini (Melachy Frame), and fall over themselves to attract the servant who now wears the crown. When Angelina realises that the man she is secretly in love with is the prince himself, her wondrous reaction was beautifully portrayed, and rather than a glass slipper this opera uses a matching pair of bracelets. Angelina gives the valet one, saying that if he really cares about her he should look for its mate.
Sung in the original Italian, the text was given a modern vernacular update. As they all sit down to dinner at the end of the longish Act I, audience members are well prepared to welcome their own dining arrangements during the interval, though the staging may be going too far: it ends in a food fight. Of course, none of this is meant to be taken seriously, just as Rossini intended.
La Cenerentola does, however, make for a delightful evening in the charming surroundings of Nevill Holt Opera. Rossini’s music was given a sparkling performance by the Royal Northern Sinfonia under the baton of Dionysis Grammenos.
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