Set Designer – Barbara de Limburg

Costume Designer – Laurent Pelly

Lighting Designer – Duane Schuler

Choreographer – Laura Scozzi

Composer – Jules Massenet

Setting

Cendrillon (Cinderella) is an opera—described as a “fairy tale”—in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Caïn based on Perrault’s 1698 version of the Cinderella fairy tale. It was given its premiere performance on 24 May 1899 in Paris.
The New Grove Dictionary of Opera notes that Massenet’s sense of humour and wit is more evident in this work, and the use of recurrent motifs is more discreet, while the love music “reminds us how well Massenet knew his Wagner”. Albert Carré (director of the Opéra-Comique and producer of the first staging) persuaded the composer to drop a prologue introducing the characters, but a brief epilogue survives. Another writer comments that Massenet’s perfectly proportioned score moves from a scene worthy of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Armide (in Cendrillon’s monologue), through Rossinian vocalises and archaic orchestrations to ballet movements on a par with Tchaikovsky.

Cast

Conductor – Bertrand de Billy
La Fée – Kathleen Kim
Cendrillon – Joyce DiDonato
Le Prince Charmant – Alice Coote
Madame de la Haltière – Stephanie Blythe
Pandolfe – Laurent Naouri