| DVD “Georg Ots – the Legend of Estonia” | |  |
|
|
| The confusions arising in the plot of "Die Fledermaus" are due to: |
|
|
| Estonian National Opera is the member of the next organizations: |
|
|
|
|
La Cenerentola at the Estonian National Opera: a simple story about dreaming and funny details
|
|
Gioachino Rossini’s Cinderella (La Cenerentola, 1817), premiered at the Estonian National Opera on Friday and produced by a Dutchman Michiel Dijkema, was, despite its unhappy ending, a joyous and brisk performance.
As the second premiere of the jubilee season of the Estonian National Opera, Gioachino Rossini’s Cinderella (La Cenerentola, 1817) was performed for the first time on Friday of last week. The Cinderella story by the librettist Jacopo Ferretti that the main star of the opera, Cinderella alias Angelina, starts to tell right in the beginning of the opera in a song titled "Once There Was a King" ("Una volta c’era un re"), has little in common with the well-known fairy tale by Charles Perrault from the story collection "Stories by Mother Goose" ("Contes de ma mère l’Oye", 1697).
He performance on the stage tells a simple story about dreaming – singing is dreaming in “Cinderella”, and the whole opera is a dream of Angelina, beginning and ending with the song "Once There Was a King". There are abundant references to dreaming in the opera, and the composer has created a lot of confusing bits, and all this creates an impression that everybody in the story realises their unreal nature. But unlike the classical fairy tale, in the end of this opera the message is given to the public about not all dreams becoming true and not all Cinderellas marrying a prince, staying instead in their ashen corners.
The performance of the opera, brought to the Estonian public for the first time, was youthfully joyous and brisk. "Cinderella" is one of the Rossini’s operas that are not easy to confine into a certain style. This is an opera buffa (comical opera) with a hint of tragic, a comedy with elements of a wondrous story, or a parable with all characters being directed by Alidoro, the tutor of Prince Don Ramiro. How often can you laugh your eyes wet at an opera? I did on that Friday.
The producer and stage designer of this performance is a Dutchman Michiel Dijkema, the costume designer is Claudia Damm. The visual imagery of both acts was rather similar – the room with lily wallpaper in the home of Cinderella and her stepsisters, and the room with similar elements in the home of Prince Don Ramiro of Salerno. The static stage design, being a mixture of modern times and past times or a mixture of real and unreal, helped highlight the events befalling the characters of the story. Although Rossini and Ferretti did not include any supernatural fairy-tale elements in their original work, such elements were included in the Tallinn version, as flying stoves and walking armchairs.
The fairy-tale aspect off the story was further highlighted by the costumes of the characters – again, a mixture, this time of allegories of Victorian court wardrobe and modern casual clothing. One of the central keywords of the performance was elaborate details, from the clap of hands that makes the lights in the opera hall go out, to the mass movements. The laugh of the public was caused precisely by the humour in details.
A successful performance
The singing party of the Friday night was composed of soloists of the younger generation. The most highlighted were Kristina Vähi and Juuli Lill as Clorinda and Thisbe, daughters of Don Magnifico, and Juhan Tralla as Prince Don Ramiro of Salerno. The first were attention-catching both visually and aurally by their brisk movement, naïve nature and memorable co-operation. Supporting them was Rauno Elp as Baron Don Magnifico of Monte Fiascone. This trio gave off a very uniform impression. Juhan Tralla charmed the public with his beautiful tenor voice. Unfortunately, the teamwork of Tralla with René Soom (Dandini, the lackey of Don Ramiro) and Helen Lokuta (Angelina alias Cinderella) still lacked the right spark. But this was still the first performance, though... Priit Volmer as Alidoro, the tutor of Don Ramiro, was entirely believable as an old scholar. The additional bonus of this performance came from the orchestra together with the conductor Arvo Volmer who was an equal partner to the soloists on stage.
And although the opera "Cinderella" does not have a happy ending, the performance in the Estonian National Opera can be considered a thorough success.
|
|
|
© Rahvusooper Estonia 2010
|
|
News
