French director/designer Laurent Pelly has staged a wonderfully whimsical new production of Cendrillon — Jules Massenet’s imaginatively rich setting of Charles Perrault’s take on the Cinderella fairy tale premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1899.
You can watch the production first seen in Santa Fe, NM, from a run at the Théâtre de a Monnaie in Brussels (which ended Thursday night) in free, high-definition video to Jan. 19, thanks to the financial support of several forward-thinking Monnaie patrons.
The whole cast is strong, but Rinat Shaham is spectacular as Lucette (Cinderella). Having a mezzo of her charisma in the role is a treat. We had the pleasure of sampling her voice and talents in Toronto two seasons age, when she arrived as a last-minute Carmen stand-in at the COC.
Check it out here.
Happy New Year.
John Terauds