Massenet: Cendrillon

When it comes to Massenet's best opera, it is between 'Manon' and 'Werther' for me. 'Thais' also has some lovely music and an affecting final scene. While there is a preference for Rossini's better known version ('La Cenerentola') of the fairytale, 'Cendrillon' is definitely well worthwhile, the story is true in spirit to the fairytale with even more magic, and the music is tuneful and beautiful, especially the Act 2 love duet.

Am familiar with 'Cendrillon' from the 2011 from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Love that production. Also loved this 2018 Met revival. Of a particularly impressive and reasonably consistent season from the 'Metropolitan Opera HD Live' series (where even the weakest 'The Exterminating Angel' and 'Cosi Fan Tutte' were still worth watching), a very interesting series of live cinema transmissions where it feels like the real thing but much cheaper, it's a contender for my favourite of the season. It's pure magic of the highest order.

The sets are minimalist but not so much that it is unappealingly ugly and are imaginatively used. The costumes are lovely, did like that the servant's drab clothes were different in look to everybody else's exotic and fantastically glamorous ones.

Stage direction from Laurent Pelly is not what you call traditional, but it is imaginative without ever jarring or feeling distasteful, with sparkling wit (essential for an opera full of it), a real sense of atmosphere and understanding of the setting, story and characterisation and a strong emotional core. Never once is what it is that makes the story so timeless lost.

Musically, the production is outstanding. The orchestral playing is sparkling and has the right amount of depth as well, the chorus blend beautifully and the conducting from Bertrand De Billy is elegant, musical and with lots of energy and nuances with no questionable tempos, allowing the music to speak for itself in a sparkling way.

Joyce DiDonato is always consistently great, and her Lucette/Cendrillon shows vocal beauty and evenness as well as a charmingly commanding presence. Alice Coote sings with her usual beautiful rich voice, is dashing and convinces more than most other mezzos in trouser roles. She blends and works beautifully with Di Donato.

Kathleen Kim hits all the right high notes with a fresh tone and is so beguiling and benevolent that you do wish her for your fairy-godmother. Stephanie Blythe has a very powerful contralto voice and clearly enjoys herself to deliciously outlandish effect.

The spirits are enchanting and the stepsisters are characterful and delightful with no signs of overplaying. Laurent Naouri's father figure is sympathetically characterised and warmly sung.

In conclusion, magical. 10/10 Bethany Cox

"Glorious," raved the New York Times when Joyce DiDonato sang the title role of Cendrillon at the Royal Opera in 2011. "Her performance was thoroughly enchanting." Now, for the first time ever, Massenet's sumptuous take on the Cinderella story comes to the Met, with DiDonato starring in the title role. She is paired with mezzo-soprano Alice Coote in the trouser role of Prince Charming, Kathleen Kim as the Fairy Godmother, and Stephanie Blythe as the imperious Madame de la Haltière. Bertrand de Billy conducts Laurent Pelly's imaginative storybook production.

Charles Perrault's 1698 fairy tale, the classic telling of the Cinderella story, is an excellent source for an opera-providing color, romance, and relatable themes for audiences of all ages. The work includes many moments in which Massenet is at his best and most widely accessible, from the pageantry and glowing musical nostalgia for the French baroque in the court scenes to the otherworldliness of the love music to the wit and humor that permeate the work as a whole.

Perrault's originally story was published at the end of the 17th century, and the opera and its music preserve references to that era of lavish court entertainments and clear-cut distinctions of social hierarchies. It is, however, a fairy tale, and as such, it takes place in an indeterminate past in which magic, whimsy, and love at first sight are features of everyday life.

Jules Massenet's score features a preponderance of the lower female voices-including a mezzo-soprano as the object of Cendrillon's affection-that were so favored by French composers in the 19th century. The result is an otherworldly yet sensual tonal palette that serves as a rich background for this familiar tale. Against all the fairy-tale wonder of the score, the title character and her prince are recognizably human. Their Act II love duet is a masterful moment emblematic of Massenet's elegant style: The prince is lyrically effusive, while all of Cendrillon's gushing emotion is expressed in a single refined yet poignant phrase as she says "You are my Prince Charming," recalled at other points throughout the score.

World Premiere: Opéra-Comique, Paris, 1899