Cendrillon review – A classic fairytale with an enchanting operatic twist

There I was, minding my own business, five minutes to curtain up, Fauteuil 4, row 4, Opéra Bastille, Paris, browsing the internet on my mobile phone. Google, Cendrillon. “Zut alors”, said the lady periscoping from Fauteuil 6. “What ees thees you are goggling at? You should be ashamed of yourself”.

“Desolée, Madame. I just entered Cendrillon. How was I to know a Cendrillon search would throw up this? Mille pardons”. “Monsieur, you are in Paris. La Bastille. Centre de notre revolution. How dare you goggle an American hamburger-eating extravaganza New York Met-monkey production of our beloved Massenet’s hidden gem?”

Cendrillon 2018, the first-ever Met production, had popped up onscreen. “Madame, it’s only my own review.” “Hmph!” By the interval, I had been forgiven.

It is a joy that Cendrillon is finding favour once more. Described as a “Conte de fées (fairy-tale)” rather than an opera, magic confronts the harsh reality of 19th-century industrialisation. 

France’s Belle Epoque was a valiant attempt to counter the dehumanising impact of the factory grind. Jules Massenet was a central player in that battle. The opera is important and should never have been allowed to slip from the repertoire.

In countries where that battle was lost, harsh, heroic art became the norm, viz. Russia’s Soviet-era factography art of the 1920s lauded the output of left shoe production by the Grizzlygrod workers co-operative. Where it was won, France, the world got Monet. Chapeau!

French director Mariame Clément’s production goes to the heart of Cendrillon’s purpose while losing none of the childlike magic that draws in audiences of all ages. She debuted as director in 2004 at Lausanne Opera with Il Signor Bruschino/Gianni Schicci.

Since her return to Paris in 2006, she has had numerous commissions for European houses, Glyndebourne travelling opera and Opera Santiago. This is her second production for Opéra National de Paris. The first was Hänsel and Gretel. There is a fairy-tale theme emerging.

Some mainstream works apart, Salome in Strasbourg, Der Rosenkavalier in Antwerp/Ghent, she has dug deep in the “almost unknown” cupboard. Some readers may cry “dunderhead” for my not being familiar with Les pigeons d’argile, Die verkaufte Braut or Das Liebesverbot. Never heard of them. 

Clément seems eager to venture where others rarely tread. With an eye sharpened by the arcane, in Cendrillon, she has delivered a stunning interpretation that goes, in Act IV, literally to the heart of Massenet’s purpose.  

Enchantingly, each scene is prefaced by a screen representation of “Cendrillon et les oiseaux”, paper cut-outs by Berthold Reichel (1881 – 1936). Before Matisse got in on the act.

The scene is set in an industrial complex redolent with complex How to Murder Your Wife “glopitta-glopitta” interconnected machines which, with puffs of smoke flashing lights, firework sparkles and oodles of fairydust, transform the mundane into the miraculous. No goofballs needed here.

If the basic Charles Perrault plot is unfamiliar to readers, I wish you well on the return trip to your newly discovered exo-planet, currently whirling around Alpha Centauri in an ellipse orbit. Give us a wave, de temps en temps. We’ll wave back through the James Webb telescope.

For the rest of us, I’ll focus on this major addition to the conventional children’s fairy-tale; the Act III scene in an enchanted forest glade. Where the parted Prince Charming and Lucette, Cendrillon’s true name, cannot see each other, separated by a giant oak, but do recognise each other’s voices. Cendrillon has gone to the forest to die of grief. 

She is revived by her Prince’s voice. La Fée (Fairy Godmother), deeply moved, “les autorise à s’embrasser”. Isn’t French more romantic than English? 

Welcome to a major cardiac theatre. Their broken hearts are united by a huge, red, pumping heart thingy, revealed in the centre of the oak. Open oak surgery. It was humungous. 

Four feet high, all the necessary vascular and arterial pipework on display and beating with the off-putting reality that modern modelling techniques can conjure up. Ugh! 

And when Prince C and Cendrillon, from opposite sides of the oak, plunged their arms through the trunk into the heart, it was difficult to avoid the point. Not for the squeamish. 

Unity, through open heart manipulation. It may have been grisly, but this was totally compelling. 

Tara Erraught, an Irish mezzo soprano, took on the soprano role of Cendrillon (Lucette). She was described as a soprano in the programme. Cendrillon is, conventionally, a soprano role.

“Wha’s goin on here?” I can only assume the casting director wanted to add some depth. Erraught certainly had a fluent ability to cope with Massenet’s range and the contradiction was not obvious. “So what?”, I suppose.

Erraught was beautifully coy, but self-possessed, displaying none of the resentment Cinderellas often bring to the forefront of their confrontations with their “ugly sisters”.

This brings us to the point that Clément’s sisters were far from ugly. They beat Cinders hands down on the “looker” scale. Especially French soprano, Charlotte Bonnet, who sang Noémie. She truly sparkled on stage, nearly outdoing the fairy creating glopita glopita machine. 

Marion Lebègue, a French mezzo-soprano, sang Dorothée and delivered a more sobering counterpoint to her gamine soeur, Noémie.

Madame de la Haltière, the infamous stepmother, was Daniela Barcellona, a French mezzo, known for proficiency in trouser roles. Here, she was not cast as absurdly domineering. Her naked ambition, that a daughter should marry the Prince, was rendered more realistic. Mrs Bennett gone to Paris.

With darkened industrial welding goggles atop her coiffe she was more a social engineer than an insanely ambitious mum, which added complexity to her relationship with her husband, Pandolfe.

Lionel Lhote, an experienced French baritone, portrayed Pandolfe as something more than the disillusioned husband, regretting the virago domineering wife picked up on a whim, who is in despair over his daughter’s fate.

We were given a much more nuanced interpretation. While championing his daughter’s cause Pandolfe was ambivalent. He and Madame de la Haltière were manoeuvrers, minor courtiers on the make. The alliance was not going well. Their ambitions to enter higher circles were being rebuffed, and Pandolfe was ambivalent.

Only an exterior moral force could resolve issues, in the form of La Fée, American soprano Kathleen Kim. She emerged from a huge distilling vat in a silver costume backlit by a bank of halogen bulbs.

No one seemed terribly surprised. Well, she was an enchantress. As Cendrillon was rendered anonymous by the glass slipper — which was more like a Jimmy Choo glittery job — so La Fée was whatever an observer deemed her to be.

Kim’s voice competed on the sparkle register with her costume. Often, especially in the forest scene, it was difficult to tell if she was a character in her own right or a manifestation of a natural force in Cendrillon’s character. 

I think that was Clément’s purpose.

If delicious ambiguity is your thing, Clément’s interpretation would certainly float your boat. She brought more dimensions to the opera than Laurent Pelly in the Met version, the only other I have seen in live performance. In New York, Cinders left for the ball in a glam coach, pulled by prancing horses. In Paris she ascended in a Montgolfier balloon, cooking with gas.

Prince Charming was British mezzo, Anna Stéphany. An award winner, and widely experienced performer, this was her Paris debut. Even post Macron re-election, the Bastille audience did not resent the fact that she was a “rosbiffe”. 

Italian Maestro, Carlo Rizzi, 1982 opera debut, was on hand to deliver fabulous sound from the Orchestre de l’Opéra national de Paris — a top rate band. Ching-Lien Wu, chorus master, did a tremendous job with her highly talented and wild-pink ball-gowned team — one still defiantly wearing a Covid mask. 

This was my first visit to La Bastille. I’ve always preferred the Palais Garnier when in Paris. Bastille looks too resolutely polished granite to be a proper French opera house. But, the sound is wonderful.

Still, it is not a venue for socialising. Compared with Covent Garden’s Floral Hall, the ENO’s American Bar and New York Met’s jazzy bars, the architects seem to have been briefed to beat the fun out of intervals. 

Long queues at sparse bars and the luxury of leaning on steel pillars balancing a Madelaine and slugging Perrier from a paper cup is about the extent of the hospitalité. There may be a “boite de joix” somewhere. If so, I missed it. 

What I did not miss was the programme. A collector’s item. Not often do programmes include the full libretto. They should. Because, with so many radio and online opera broadcasts on offer, having a libretto to hand is essential. 

Perhaps some people find listening for three hours to Berg’s Wozzeck in sound only, without a clue as to what’s going on, is their idea of fun. They probably also search for Dominator tractors on their mobile phones. 

So many modern operas rely on visual context to make them comprehensible, let alone enjoyable. Treat yourself. Read the words! 

Instead of the usual flimsy playbill, the audience was presented with a well-written 132-page, accessible, beautifully illustrated academic work. Don’t invite me to dinner anytime soon. I’ll drone on about the development of the Cendrillon myth from 1634 to the present day. 

This Clément production is another milestone in the ongoing Cendrillon story. Touching, crafty and relevant, I suggest other companies take note and hustle co-production rights. Call Bastille 999 at once!!

And another thing!

Anna Netrebko, the soprano blacklisted by the Met for Putin links, which she half-heartedly recanted, is up and running at the Opéra de Monte Carlo “mini-me” Garnier theatre.

I pitched up last Saturday for a performance of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, expecting to see Maria Agresta take on the role. She had become “ill” and Monte Carlo had speed-dialled Netrebko, who was twiddling her thumbs in Vienna.

Apparently, at the first performance, she sang a supportive Ukraine ditty as their national flag was waved. No solidarity on display at Saturday’s closing night.

Netrebko withdrew from performances, on principle, in March following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February. And has now returned, in a special operatic operation, to the stage in Monaco — in April. Hail, the 30-day comeback diva.

Agresta, originally cast as Manon and still in the official programme, was conveniently obliged to withdraw for “health reasons”. One performance, perhaps. But the whole run? Really?

More digging, and a report from Garnier Monte Carlo next week.