If asked to nominate your favourite fairytale destination, you may not automatically think of Leeds. But Opera North’s production of Rossini’s rags to riches tale forms the climax of a season of pure enchantment – one that has drawn together folktales from Russia (Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden), Germany (Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel) and now Italy, via the French retelling of Cinderella by Charles Perrault.
Economies of scale dictated that all three fairytales developed from the basic box set by Giles Cadle, which has served as sewing machine workshop, a rough council estate and now a slightly down-at-heel dancing school where the portly instructor Don Magnifico dispenses ballroom lessons to the children of Leeds.
The opening sequence of Aletta Collins’s production – from the faded certificates on the wall to the competitive huddle of proud mums in the corner – will be recognisable to anyone who has sat through a Saturday morning dance class. And given that Collins established herself as a choreographer before becoming a director, it is a concept that plays to her strengths. Updating Rossini’s opera to the Strictly Dancing era gives the story a grounding in reality and enables Collins to introduce a gestural language that will speak as much to dance fans as opera buffs.
It also helps to fulfil Rossini’s remit that this should be an enchantment-free version of the tale – there’s no fairy godmother, no pumpkin conveyance and, most significantly, no glass slipper – just a plain, red friendship bracelet by which the prince is finally able to identify his bride. But it’s a nice touch that the all-male chorus becomes a stylish army of party planners who come scouring the studio for eligible young women to appear at their boss’s ball.
As Cinderella’s pushy stepsisters, Sky Ingram and Amy J Payne make a splendidly vulgar pair of tall poppies desperate to present themselves at the head of the queue. Henry Waddington amply captures the pomposity of the dancing master Don Magnifico with his red tracksuit and less than flexible limbs. John Savournin, meanwhile, exudes an air of bowler-hatted mystique as the strange philosopher who informs Cinderella that she shall go to the ball.
The fairytale season has largely drawn upon company regulars – Quirijn de Lang is luxury casting as svelte-toned Dandini and Wyn Davies’s conducting is as agile and effervescent as the score demands. But the grand finale gains strength from the introduction of two exceptional new faces. Sunnyboy Dladla is a South African tenor whose voice seems to hover effortlessly in the high altitude of Prince Ramiro’s tessitura; while the Canadian mezzo Wallis Giunta has an incipient star quality that positively explodes with the ornamental cascades of her concluding aria, which pops the cork on a successful season like a champagne bottle that has been shaken for a very long time.
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