Michele Angelini as Prince Ramiro and Isabel Leonard as Cinderella.

Derrick Parker as Alidoro, Isabel Leonard as Cinderella and Rod Nelman as Don Magnifico.

Andrew Garland as Dandini, Derrick Parker as Alidoro, Rod Nelman as Don Magnifico, Alissa Anderson as Tisbe and Brandi Icard as Clorinda. (l-r, front) Michele Angelini as the Prince and Isabel Leonard as Cinderella.

Alissa Anderson as Tisbe, Isabel Leonard as Cinderella, Brandi Icard as Clorinda, and (below) Andrew Garland as Dandini.

  

La Cenerentola (Cinderella)

by Gioacchino Rossini

Presented by Fort Worth Opera

April 26 - May 10

at

$19-$154

Repeats 2 pm May 3 & 8 pm May 8

Sorry—no fairy godmother, no wicked stepmother, no singing mice, no pumpkin carriage, no magic spells or magic wands or glass slippers in Rossini’s operatic version of Cinderella, or Cenerentola.

Though versions of the story can be traced back millennia, the tale of a disinherited but deserving young woman had special resonance in the revolutionary maelstrom of early 19th-century Europe, where the question of who was a genuine aristocrat, and who should be, was real and immediate. And if the questions aren’t answered definitively in Cenerentola, they weren’t in real life either.

The basic elements are present, same as in the Disney version: abused kitchen maid, abusive parent and siblings, intervening elder, separated matched objects (in this case matching jewel bracelets) and handsome Prince. Interestingly, though, there’s no hocus-pocus magic in Cenerentola. In keeping with the age and its contradictions, God looms large in an aria that promises divine benevolence.

Historical implications aside, when it came to opera, the aspect that mattered more than anything else to Rossini and his contemporaries was showing off brilliant singing. And Rossini provided the material for vocal virtuosity in the form of operatic roles containing equal parts of pure melody and florid vocal acrobatics.

In short, everybody in Cenerentola gets plenty of opportunity to shine. Cenerentola herself (aka Angelina) gets the grandest moments. And the Cenerentola in the Fort Worth Opera production, Isabel Leonard, is everything a bel canto mezzo should be, with a velvety, resonant quality, as well as the ability to maneuver through Rossini’s vocal obstacle course and make it sound easy. Her attractive appearance—she looks great in rags, breathtaking in a ballgown—doesn’t hurt a bit in creating a convincing Angelina.

Rossini’s Angelina doesn’t have a cruel stepmother, but she has a stupid, conniving stepfather and two ugly stepsisters, here performed by Rod Nelman, Brandi Icard and Alissa Anderson, matching Leonard’s vocal agility while reveling in slapstick evil. Derrick Parker brings an added level of serene grandeur as the wise Alidoro (parallel to the fairy godmother, but without the magic wand), while tenor Michele Angelini plays the lovestruck Prince Ramiro with an unassuming modesty that goes well with Andrew Garland’s delightfully pretentious take on Ramiro’s sidekick/servant Dandini.
    
The biggest challenge in any production of Rossini’s Cenerentola is the time span; Rossini’s audiences wanted hour after hour of vocal virtuosity as urgently as today’s audience demands speed and quick action. The best solution for a modern production, ultimately, and the solution in play in this production, is to present Rossini’s brilliantly crafted score with careful attention to detail and momentum, and to trust the audience to enter a more calmly paced, less distracted world.

Stage director David Gately found just the right combination of visual humor and operatic dignity, backed up by Erhard Ram’s art nouveau sets (from Kentucky Opera) and Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s costumes (designed for San Francisco Opera). Conductor Scott Bergeson and the Fort Worth Symphony accompanied elegantly.

►Wayne Lee Gay was active as a classical music and dance critic in the Dallas-Fort Worth region for many years, and is a past finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for criticism. He is currently completing a Ph.D. in creative writing at the University of North Texas, where he is a teaching fellow in the English department. He is managing editor of the American Literary Review, and recently completed the short story cycle Jeans, Boots and Starry Skies.

The Fort Worth Opera Festival continues through May 10, with alternating performances of Bizet's Carmen and Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking.