[Met Performance] CID:330105



La Cenerentola
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, October 27, 1997 Telecast





La Cenerentola (4)
Gioachino Rossini | Jacopo Ferretti
Angelina
Cecilia Bartoli

Prince Ramiro
Ramón Vargas

Dandini
Alessandro Corbelli

Don Magnifico
Simone Alaimo

Clorinda
Joyce Guyer

Tisbe
Wendy White

Alidoro
Michele Pertusi

Recitative Accompanist
Kevin Murphy


Conductor
James Levine


TV Director
Brian Large





Telecast: Metropolitan Opera Presents
Available for streaming at Met Opera on Demand
The performances of 10/27/97, 11/3/97, and 11/12/97 were taped

Review 1:

Review of Martin Mayer in Opera :

Cecilia Bartoli's Angelina in the new Metropolitan Opera production of "La Cenerentola" is a consistent and credible characterization. At the end of the opera, when she navigates what are apparently Rossini's restored ornamentations of "Nacqui all'affanno," she sets her face, her neck muscles and even her upper torso in a series of contortions. One feels not that Bartoli is giving us a lesson in the exactitude of fioritura, but that Angelina makes these gestures when she sings. Bartoli not only has the great artist's power to concentrate our attention on her from the moment of her appearance, she also has the genius to make that power create authenticity for the character she plays.

"Cenerentola" is not to my mind a very good piece - it's a string of ensembles of confusion tied together mostly with yards of caricature and formulaic arias. One even sympathizes with the wicked sisters in their objection to the perpetually repeated "Una volta c'era un re." Still, the role of the official pretender Dandini has a good deal of fun in it, not to mention difficult ornaments in the middle of the baritone register, the duets of the lovers arc very pretty, and it's memorable when Angelina lets go, especially when the Angelina is Bartoli. Cesare Lievi's production is straightforward, inexpensive and amusing in the distorted perspectives of Maurizio Balo's sets. On October 27, Alessandro Corbelli was a splendid Dandini, Ramon Vargas a light-voiced but pretty prince, Michele Pertusi a sonorous Alidoro with full mastery of the florid moments, and Simone Alaimo carried off the foolishness of Don Magnifico with considerable panache. This is not James Levine's Fach, and when the overture began I dreaded the evening, but at his best Levine has always adapted to the strengths of his singers, and working with this cast infused a true Rossinian spirit in him.



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