Opera Review: A Piece of Fairy Cake

Joyce DiDonato sings a radiant Cendrillon at the Met.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The lighting department: Joyce DiDonata as Cinderella in Massenet's Cendrillon.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2018 The Metropolitan Opera.

At the end of the 2014 season, the mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato climbed atop a wedding cake at the end of Rossini's La Cenerentola, a role in which she caused a sensation at the Metropolitan Opera. This month, Ms. DiDonato returned to the stage of America's largest opera house--and to the ballrooms of a very familiar fairy tale--to sing the title role in Cendrillon, the 1899 adaptation of the Cinderella story by Jules Massenet.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Cendrillon

Joyce DiDonato stars in the Massenet version of Cinderella.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Joyce DiDonato goes to the ball in the Laurent Pelly production of Cendrillon.
Photo © 2018 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Metropolitan Opera has spent the last decade enthusiastically trawling through the vast operatic catalogue of Jules Massenet, the Parisian composer who represents the last gasp of French Romanticism before the dawn of the 20th century. Here they present the company's first performances of Cendrillon Joyce DiDonato sings the title role.

Opera Review: When the Shoe Finally Fits

MSM Opera unearths Nicolo Isouard's Cendrillon.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

What Cendrillon is all about: the shoes. 

In recent years, the Manhattan School of Music's opera program has become a cabinet of curiosities: a clearing-house for little-heard versions of familiar operatic stories by unfamiliar composers. The latest of these, seen Saturday at the school's temporary performance space, the Florence Gould Auditorium at the French Institute/Alliance Francaise is Cendrillon, in a 1810 opera-comique by the Maltese composer Nicolo Isouard.

Who?

Concert Review: Any Color You Like

Vladimir Jurowski makes his New York Philharmonic debut.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The conductor Vladimir Jurowski made his New York Philharmonic debut this week.
Photo from Medici.TV

With his long dark hair, spidery limbs and penchant for conducting in priestly vestments, Vladimir Jurowski strikes a dashing figure on the podium. In his New York Philharmonic subscription debut (seen at Avery Fisher Hall on Thursday night) the Moscow-born conductor also proved that he is a budding master of 20th century post-Romantic repertory. The program featured Karol Szymanowski's Violin Concerto No. 1 and a set of excerpts from the 1945 Prokofiev ballet Cinderella.

Opera Review: Fairytale of New York

Joyce DiDonato is the Met's radiant Cenerentola.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Javier Camerena (left) and Joyce DiDonato (right) confront the Flying Spaghetti Monster (center)
in Rossini's La Cenerentola. Photo by Ken Howard © 2014 The Metropolitan Opera.

Last night, the Metropolitan Opera rolled out its twenty-sixth and final revival of the 2013-14 season, a revival of the company's 1997 production of Rossini's La Cenerentola.. There are no glass slippers in this version of the fairy tale (Roman censors in 1817 were prudish about bare feet) but there was plenty of vocal magic in the air.