Rossini's La Cenerentola: Opera's Cinderella Story

Aria Code

WQXR & The Metropolitan Opera

Music Interviews, Music Commentary, Aria, Music, Arts, Metropolitan, Performing Arts, Code, Wqxr, Opera, Wnyc, Studios

4.8 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2020

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Gioachino Rossini’s operatic version of the Cinderella story may not have any enchanted mice or pumpkins, but there’s plenty of magic in the music. Cinderella (or La Cenerentola, in Italian) has silently suffered the abuse of her stepfather and stepsisters, but in true fairy tale fashion, her fate changes for the better and all is made right by the triumph of goodness over evil.

In the opera’s joyous finale “Nacqui all’affanno… Non più mesta,” Cenerentola looks ahead to a future with no more sadness. In this episode, Rhiannon Giddens and guests explore this universal tale and how it still resonates today. Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato sings the aria onstage at the Metropolitan Opera.

The Guests

Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato loves the strength and sincerity of this great Rossini heroine. She has performed the title role in La Cenerentola at leading opera houses around the world and believes in its absolute celebration of human goodness.

Writer Fred Plotkin loves opera – all of it! – and he shares this love in his book Opera 101: A Guide to Learning and Loving Opera. He has a special connection to Rossini’s music, which he feels is all about the heartbeat.

Maria Tatar is a research professor at Harvard University in the fields of folkore and mythology. She vividly remembers when her sister used to read fairy tales to her as a child, and believes that we have the right and responsibility to keep retelling these stories in a way that’s meaningful to us today.

Mezzo-soprano Alma Salcedo’s mother tells her she’s been singing since she was nine months old. Her personal Cinderella story began in Venezuela and has brought her to Spain, where she has fought to keep her dreams of being a singer alive.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Think of this as a roller coaster. Down we go and then up we go again and then down we go and then up we go again.
0:10.0	Hold on because this is life.
0:13.0	From WQXR in the Metropolitan Opera, this is Ariaco. I'm Rianne Gibbons.
0:19.0	My conservatory became these people's houses and my practice rooms were these people's bathrooms.
0:28.0	Every episode we crack open a single area to see what's inside.
0:32.0	Distroids that are larger than life, they're twice as unnatural, but they help us navigate the real.
0:39.0	Today is Nompu Mesta, the joyous finale to Joaquino Rossini's take on Cinderella, La China Rentela.
0:46.0	By the time it hits the last note, the sensation is that you're in the heavens.
0:59.0	Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you probably already know the Disney version of the Cinderella story.
1:07.0	You can fill in all the major plot points between once upon a time and happily ever after.
1:13.0	There's the singing mice and there's the pumpkin ubers and there's the really uncomfortable looking footwear and all of that.
1:19.0	But you may not know that there's actually quite a few different versions of the story.
1:25.0	And they're not all kid friendly, even though I've read some of them to my kids.
1:29.0	There's the one where Cinderella kills their step sisters. I didn't read that one, I promise.
1:33.0	There's the one where the step sisters have to chop off their toes and their heels, try to fit them into the shoe.
1:38.0	That's a little gruesome. I didn't read that one either. Anyway, you get the picture.
1:42.0	But don't worry, there's none of the bloody stuff in the operatic version that we're going to talk about today.
1:48.0	It's by the great Italian composer, Joaquino Rossini.
1:51.0	And there are twists. Like there's a stepfather instead of a stepmother.
1:56.0	And instead of a fairy godmother, it's the princess tutor, Alidoro, who acts as kind of a wingman, getting the two lovebirds together.
2:04.0	Also, no singing mice, no slippers, no coaches, expiring a midnight. In fact, there's no magic at all.
2:12.0	Well, except for the music.
	...

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