Lyric Opera 2018-2019 Issue 6 Il Travatore

December 1, 2018 - January 20, 2019 | 31 will be forever grateful to Perrault for that col- lection, given that it included several of the most beloved stories ever written: Little Red Riding Hood , Puss in Boots , Sleeping Beauty , and of course, Cinderella. Perrault, by the way, is very much a part of the production to be seen at Lyric. e director, Laurent Pelly, has mentioned on many occasions that as a child, when visiting his grandmother, he read Cendrillon in a volume of Perrault’s fairytales with illustrations by the great Gustave Doré (1832 -1883), a book long cherished all over France. Pelly’s production is, in a way, an homage to the book and to his joyful experiences reading it. e story is actually written out on the walls of the set for his production. Cinderella has always figured in popular culture. e earliest version of the story goes back to the first century B.C.: the tale of Rhodopis, a Greek courtesan to whom the King of Egypt proposes marriage. e basic elements of Cinderella have been adapted end- lessly in literature, including Aschenputtel , a much darker version than Perrault’s, written by the Brothers Grimm. Children are invari- ably horrified by the stepsisters in Grimm; at their mother’s urging, each takes drastic action (one cutting off her toe, the other a portion of her heel) in an attempt to fit her foot into the glass slipper. Onstage we’ve seen Cinderella in British pantomimes, as well as in the full-length ballet gloriously composed by the great Serge Prokofiev. Musical theater got into the act delightfully in 1957 with a Cinderella by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, seen in black-and-white by an astoundingly large audience nationwide – 107 million televi- sion viewers. It was remounted successfully (1965, 1997) and adapted for Broadway (2013). Imdb.com reveals no fewer than 200 listings for various versions of the story created for film and televi- sion, including the two Disney versions (animated in 1950, live action 65 years later). ere have been film versions, such as e Slipper and the Rose and Ever After . Pretty Woman certainly has its Cinderella-ish elements, and – in 1960 – there was even Cinderfella , with Jerry Lewis in the title role entranced by Anna Maria Alberghetti as Princess Charming. Opera, of course, has been an important part of this story’s evo- lution, beginning in the mid-18 th century with a two-act Cendrillon by Jean- Louis Larnette, produced by Paris’s Opéra Comique. ere have been innumerable other versions, including Rossini’s La Cenerentola in 1816; also works of Nicolas Isouard, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, and even one composed by one of the most illustrious singers of the 19 th cen- tury, mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot. In Cendrillon , Massenet and his librettist, Henri Cain, departed from Perrault in some interesting ways. Most important was the significant expansion of the roles of the Fairy Godmother, Cinderella’s father, and Prince Charming to give them much greater appeal. Massenet also knew that his audience would appreciate the sheer variety of the piece – the total integration of sung dialogue with arias, duets, ensembles, choruses, and dance music – and the sheer charm of the entire work. e commission for Cendrillon from the Opéra Comique had originated with its famously enterprising director, Léon Carvalho, but the premiere kept getting postponed, leaving Massenet in despair. Carvalho died in late 1897 and was succeeded by Albert Carré, who would do much for the propagation of new French operas during the next three decades. He made it his aim to produce an absolutely smashing premiere of Cendrillon , with an opulence that even the much grander- scale Opéra de Paris would envy. After those frustrating delays, one can imagine how gratified Massenet must have been when the Opéra Comique finally intro- duced Cendrillon in 1899. e composer never attended the premieres of his operas, but a telegram from the theater (sent by the great comic baritone Lucien Fugère, who created the role of Pandolfe) brought him word of the opera’s success. Just three years after that first e ball scene, as drawn by the celebrated Gustave Doré, whose illustrations for Charles Perrault’s fairytales were an inspiration for the Laurent Pelly production of Cendrillon . Film versions of the Cinderella story include (from left to right) e Slipper and the Rose (1976), Pretty Woman (1990), and A Cinderella Story (2004). O P E R A N O T E S | L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O