Director Julia Burbach’s new production of Rossini’s La Cenerentola (Cinderella), the opening production of English National Opera’s new season at the Coliseum, is a feast both for the eyes and the ears. ENO always sing in English and the new translation by Christopher Cowell not just updates the libretto (it’s full of contemporary idioms), it has kept the froth and wit of the original.
It must be formidably difficult to sing in English, too. Where the Italian would roll easily off the tongue, the English offers more of a tongue twister. So when Simon Bailey plays Don Magnifico (a marvellous performance), he has to sing such lines as “Go fetch a broom and sweep the room, then mop the floor and paint the door, take out the bin and buy some gin, don’t stand there in a trance when I say dance, you dance” – delivered at gunfire speed.
You’ll get the idea if you think of Rossini’s most famous opera, The Barber of Seville, and the Figaro aria. That is the pace for much of this opera, too, mixed in with quantities of coloratura, making it a demanding night for Cinderella (Deepa Johnny, a radiant mezzo-soprano with a thrilling timbre) and her Prince Charming, Don Ramiro (Aaron Godfrey-Mayes, a lyrical tenor who starts a bit nerdy and woebegone and develops nicely).
What? A nerdy Prince Charming? The story here isn’t quite the same as the original – or even the Disney version. The prince is being nagged into marriage by an all-male chorus and one of the masterstrokes of the evening is they have become a scarlet-clad bunch of ancestors who have dropped from their portraits (still carrying their frames) to harass him into continuing the royal line. The ENO Chorus is always terrific but here they shine as individuals, featuring kilted Scotsmen and polo players, Queen Victoria and Henry VIII.
Aaron Godfrey-Mayes as Prince Charming and the ENO chorus
It has all been planned by Alidoro, the prince’s former tutor (David Ireland with many a fine comic flourish). The prince must marry one of Don Magnifico’s daughters – who pretends he has only two, the third being, of course, the downtrodden Cinders. These sisters (excellent performances from Isabelle Peters and Grace Durham) are not so much ugly as vacuous, vain and obsessed with marrying the prince – in contrast to Cinderella who, of course, wants only true love.
She finds this when Dandini, the prince’s valet, comes to call – but (you guessed it) this is not Dandini but the prince in disguise, come to scout out the talent. Then Dandini arrives, pretending to be the prince (a show-stealing performance from Charles Rice) and chaos happily ensues.
There’s so much to love about this production – the broad farce, some wonderful choreography for the singers (and the dancers too) and some very fine singing indeed. My only quibbles would be that the magic doesn’t quite work and I wasn’t sure about the roles of the mice or the ghost of Cinderella’s mother. But there again, who cares? The ENO Orchestra played magnificently under Taiwanese conductor, Yi-Chen Lin, who brought out every nuance and delight in Rossini’s music, the very pinnacle of opera buffa, and pulled it all together in an evening of fun and pure delight.
Performances continue at the London Coliseum on 2nd-14th October. For more information, and for bookings, please visit www.eno.org.
