Meet Our Singers: DANA PUNDT, Clorinda

Seattle Opera Young Artist Dana Pundt, fresh from her tour of Washington as the Marchesa del Poggio in the Young Artists Program production of Un giorno di regno, is now making her mainstage debut in La Cenerentola as Cinderella’s wicked older sister, Clorinda. We checked in recently about how she was first exposed to opera, in a small town in rural Texas, about singing different types of bel canto, and about participating in a fairy-tale for adults.

Congratulations on your mainstage debut, Dana! Since you’re new on our stage, we’d love to find out a little about your background. What is your hometown?
Kilgore, Texas. Or Liberty City.

That’s the major metropolitan area, in that part of Texas?
There are no major metropolitan areas in that part of Texas! It’s a bunch of small towns, and you say you’re from one or the other. Liberty City is technically the village where I lived. They had two stop signs.

Wow, yeah, that’s smaller than my hometown...we had a traffic light! Do you get back to Liberty City?
From time to time. My parents still live close to there, in Tyler, Texas. But no, I’m a young singer, so, no home, other than bouncing around between Cincinnati, where I went to school, and Chicago and Des Moines, before here.

That’s right, you were doing the Young Artists Program in Des Moines before joining ours. And others?
Glimmerglass, a few years ago. But I’ve been in Des Moines for the last two summers.

How did you become interested in opera as a career?
Good question!

Particularly growing up in such a remote area.
Well, I always sang, from about the time I was three years old. And my mom got me involved in church choir, and community musicals, that sort of thing. I was Brigitta in The Sound of Music when I was about 10. But believe it or not, in a town about 30 miles away, they started a little fledgling opera company, Opera East Texas. They were fairly successful for several years, starting when I was about 11 years old. They aren’t putting on shows right now. And I got to see Madama Butterfly, and that was it.

You were like, “OK, that’s what I’m doing.”
Done. Front row, bawling my eyes out the whole time, told my mom after the show “I’m gonna be better than that soprano!” And I got involved with them every summer after that, singing in the chorus...

And then you went to school with the intention of becoming a singer.
No question about it.

Can you tell us a little, now that rehearsals have begun, can you tell us more about your role of Clorinda?
Yes, she’s right up my alley...I love these kinds of characters. She is ridiculous, smart-assed...sometimes it’s fun to play these meaner characters.

As a soprano, so much of the time you play these goody-goody girls, who suffer and then die, but here...
Exactly. You don’t usually get to be bitchy or evil, as a soprano. Unless you’re Queen of the Night.

Dana Pundt in La Cenerentola rehearsal
Alan Alabastro, photo

Would you say Clorinda is a mean person?
To Cinderella. She’s just as spoiled brat, essentially. Over-the-top, you know, everything is exaggerated.

How do we tell the difference between Clorinda and Tisbe?
Clorinda is a little more the leader; she’s older. And I’m in a green dress.

Dana Pundt's Clorinda costume, for La Cenerentola

And is Clorinda a hard role to sing?
It is! It’s surprisingly difficult, more so than I expected. This is my first Rossini. I live in Bellini-Donizetti bel canto land, but I hadn’t sung Rossini before.

What’s the challenge?
All the patter. There’s basically zero legato singing, it’s all bouncy and choppy and light, pattery. Which is a whole different skill set. And sometimes the range for Clorinda is ridiculously high.

You’re the only soprano, so this is one of those, “Dana, you’ll have to sing all the high notes in our opera!” ensemble roles, isn’t it! You’re on top, reaching for the stars whenever everybody is onstage, chattering away together.
Yes, and I love that!

That’s true with Barber of Seville, too, with Berta, the maid, she sings those high notes so in the audience, our ears always go right there. So that will be you.
Especially in that first act finale, it’s crazy. I sing above the staff for the whole thing.

And that’s comfortable?
It can be. It’s not undoable...just more like, “Really, Rossini? Thanks.”

Can you compare it to the Queen of the Night?
No, it’s a totally different type of singing. With the Queen, you’re in middle voice and then you bounce around up high, then you’re done, whatever. But this, it stays up in between. Not as high as Queen, not as low as Queen, right in the middle all the time.

You mostly sing ensembles in this opera; you have to be paying really close attention to everybody else onstage with you.
Yes, it’s more about the acting, for Clorinda and Tisbe, than anything else. Even when it’s hard to sing. Keeping the whole ensemble together, when it’s syncopated, and all the patter...that’s the real challenge.

Dana Pundt as the Marchesa del Poggio in Un giorno di regno
Elise Bakketun, photo

Now, for some reason we’re doing lots of bel canto comedy at Seattle Opera this season. You’re now at work on Rossini’s La Cenerentola, and you just finished our Young Artists Program tour of Verdi’s Un giorno di regno. I guess those shows aren’t exactly from the same world of opera, there’s a couple decades in between them...
The comedy is very similar, I would say. I think La Cenerentola is funnier. But in terms of the music, the ensembles are actually pretty similar. The solo singing is extremely different.

What’s the difference between doing a show with the Young Artists Program and working on the mainstage?
In the Young Artists Program you get a lot more one-on-one attention, in terms of preparing the role. We had numerous coachings on everything, including the ensembles, before we ever started staging. But with this, you gotta be ready to go. That’s the way I like it, I show up ready to go and we don’t waste any time. But in a Young Artists Program you’re supposed to be going a little more slowly, because you’re learning things.

What are your favorite memories of that tour y’all did this fall, taking Un giorno di regno around Washington? Your schedule looked crazy, criss-crossing the mountains back and forth...
Well, the drive is beautiful, so I didn’t mind all the car rides. It’s really nothing compared to a program like Opera Iowa, which is the most brutal thing you’ve ever experienced. 3 or 4 performances a day, at different places. But let’s see...favorite experience...I found that Walla Walla was a really cool city. Lots to do. We were there for a couple of days, had a couple nice meals; they’re big on their wines, out there.

What was your favorite moment in Un giorno di regno?
Oh, definitely, the duet between myself and Belfiore, the fight scene. So much fun! I loved doing that over and over again! [laughs]

Dana Pundt as Clorinda, Daniela Pini as Cenerentola, and Sarah Larsen as Tisbe in La Cenerentola rehearsal
Alan Alabastro, photo

You love playing these nasty...”spiritose,” I guess you’d call them in Italian, feisty, these ladies who give the men such a hard time. Have you ever had to play the “Oh, my man has left me, I’m gonna suck poison out of my ring and die” type girls?
Yeah, I’ve done a lot of Gildas. It’s more of a challenge for me, to play young and innocent. I’m working on Juliette, so...exactly.

Speaking of “young and innocent,” what memories do you have, as a kid, of fairy-tales? Do you remember hearing Cinderella for the first time?
Disney movies, yeah.

Did you want to be a little Disney princess, when you were a girl?
Probably. Although I think I grew out of it quickly, thank God. Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty. Little Mermaid all the way.

You can’t sing Rusalka, can you?
I wish! I would kill to have the chance, but it’s a full lyric, it needs a bigger voice than mine.

Do you think La Cenerentola will appeal to kids? Or adults?
It’s not really geared for kids; I think it’s more of an adult version. I like the changes in the story from the more familiar version. Not having the fairy godmother, that kind of thing. I like the fact that she falls in love with the Prince when she thinks he’s poor. In the fairy-tale, there’s always that question, “Does she only love him because he’s rich?” In this it makes more sense, it’s a more mature relationship. I like the difference.

Is there a come-uppance at the end of this story, for you wicked sisters?
Not really. It’s too bad, we really don’t get punished. We listen to hear sing this beautiful aria at the end, where she forgives us...

Right, and the Prince is really angry with you, because you’ve all been such twerps.
Yes, but she won’t let him punish us. She wants forgiveness and love all around. So we all change our tune to: “She’s great! We love our sister!”

Dana Pundt in La Cenerentola rehearsal
Alan Alabastro, photo

Meet Our Singers: SARAH LARSEN, Tisbe

With La Cenerentola rehearsals well underway, it's time to start introducing the terrific singers of our ensemble cast for this lively Rossini comedy. Today we hear from Sarah Larsen, the wonderful mezzo soprano, now in her second year with Seattle Opera's Young Artists Program, who plays Cinderella's vain half-sister Tisbe. Sarah made a strong mainstage debut last fall and was a memorable Suzuki in Madama Butterfly for us. She's having plenty of fun now exercising her comedic skills in a completely different kind of opera--and remembering the important role fairy-tales, and theater pieces and films made from them, played in her life as a young person.

Welcome back, Sarah! We loved having you on the mainstage last spring...but tell us what you did last summer.
I was an Apprentice Artist at Santa Fe Opera, and had one of my most rewarding opera experiences so far covering a role in King Roger, in Polish. Stephen Wadsworth was the director, and Evan Rogister was the conductor. I loved doing that.

Singing in Polish...
It was scary at first, but it fits in there, somewhere in between singing in German and singing in Russian!

Marius Kwiecien was there, too, right? A favorite singer of ours...
Yes, he was the only Polish singer there, singing the title role, and he was amazing.

Sarah Larsen sang her first Suzuki to the Butterfly of Patricia Racette at Seattle Opera last May
Elise Bakketun, photo

While in Santa Fe, I hear you ran into an old friend from the Seattle Opera stage...
Yes! Pat Racette, my Butterfly, did a soprano masterclass for all of us. To see her work on “Un bel dì” with someone was intense. I was sitting in the back of the room, saying to myself, “Ok, Sarah, you can’t cry, keep it together...” Because I had been with her in that situation, and to see her working with someone on that was so touching. She’s fantastic.

I know you were dashing around the state earlier this fall doing Verdi’s comic opera Un giorno di regno. How much experience do you have performing in comedies? We’ve seen you doing lots of serious roles so far in Seattle: Charlotte in Werther, Suzuki in Madama Butterfly.
Most of my experience has been in tragedies. It’s so fun, now, to be able to let loose in this terrific comedy. But comedy is much more difficult. You really have to hit your marks every time. You can’t fudge anything.

It has to be precise.
Especially with this production of Cenerentola. We’re working really hard on keeping everything precise and clean. That’s what makes the audience react—you’re doing it wrong when it’s you onstage reacting, instead of the audience.

How do you know when you’ve got something that works?
The director generally knows best. A singer might think that something they’ve come up with is really really funny, but it might not read at all.

Or, once you become self-conscious of it—
Right, then you want to make the most of your bit, and that can be dangerous.

Is the inverse of your precision-axiom true? If it’s so crucial to be precise in comedy, then is it ok in tragedy to be imprecise? Or do you have more leeway, in a tragic context, to do it slightly differently at each performance?
I think so...you may have a little bit more freedom, depending on the piece. But it’s not as if one is easier than the other. They require different kinds of concentration.

Sarah Larsen played tragedy as Charlotte, with Andrew Stenson in the title role, in last fall's Young Artists Program touring production of Werther
Elise Bakketun, photo

What can you tell us specifically about your character in La Cenerentola, wicked half-sister Tisbe?
She is the younger sister, very conscious of how she looks...she’s always trying to accentuate her loveliness at all times. “My beauty will charm everyone, ‘cause I’m awesome!”

Costumes Sarah Larsen will wear as Tisbe in La Cenerentola

What color should we look for, when we’re trying to tell you apart from your big sister Clorinda?
I have yellow hair, with pink curlers at the top, and a pink dress. I just came from my costume fitting—it’s a lot of pink! It’s a really, really, fun costume! I’ve been following this production ever since it premiered in Houston, a good friend was the original Clorinda, and I remember seeing pictures she took of the shoes, the costumes, the hair, and I thought “I want to do this production, that looks like so much fun!” And I’m just crazy-excited about doing it now. We’re having a little bit too much fun in there [points toward the rehearsal studio].

Do either you or Clorinda have any real, genuine attraction, either to the prince or his valet?
I think it’s just status. Look at the house where we live, and our costumes, yes, they’re very bright, but they’re all patched together. We have definitely fallen on hard times. We’re looking for the number-one way to get out of there, and the possibility of getting married to the prince—that’s our ticket to heaven, right there.

Do you love your father, Don Magnifico? He certainly dotes on you and your sister...
Yes, we love him. We like to make fun of him...he’s an endearing curmudgeon. But he’s the reason we actually have dresses, to go to the ball.

Now, besides Cinderella, you’re the other mezzo in our production. Are you learning the title role in hopes of one day singing it?
I am, I’ve been looking at it for a couple of years now. It’s ridiculously challenging, and I’ve been learning a lot about myself as I’ve studied it. My voice has been growing, my technique has been getting more secure, and certain things are getting easier. It’s great seeing Daniela [Pini] and Karin [Mushegain, the two Cenerentolas] sing this, because it seems so easy. I have so much respect for that, because I have been working so hard! I think in a couple more years, I might be ready. It’s one of those roles you aspire to, as a mezzo. It’s so virtuosic.

Ok...but I’d think that, in terms of the acting, Tisbe probably has more fun.
More fun?

Cenerentola is such a goody two-shoes.
Maybe, but I think my temperment is more a Cenerentola temperment. With the two wicked sisters, we’re just running around and playing, the whole opera long.

Sarah Larsen in La Cenerentola rehearsal
Alan Alabastro, photo

Did fairy-tales play a big role in your life when you were a kid?
I loved fairy-tales. I actually sang Cinderella in the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical when I was 14, and it was great. I’m an only child, so reading was very big in my life; I had both volumes of the Grimm fairy-tales. They’re really violent!

Yes, the wicked stepsisters don’t come out very well in there!
One of them cuts off her toe, so her foot fits into the little slipper...

So gross!
But I think it’s important, for kids, to read fairy-tales. And better go for the original, the oldest documented versions of these things we have.

Were you obsessed with Disney princesses when you were a little girl?
I was a princess for Halloween, a few times. My mom is an opera singer, and I would dress up in her gowns and flounce around the house and pretend that—I think it was that Captain Hook had captured me, and taken me to a palace, and there was a prince who was going to come save me. We only children have active imaginations!

Captain Hook, that’s interesting...Peter Pan is one of the more boy-focused Disney stories.
There may still be a recording—and if you try to find it, I will kill you—of me as a kid doing all the roles in Peter Pan, you know, saying one line as Wendy, and then going and putting a hat on and now I’m Captain Hook. It goes on for hours.

Were you just...improvising a script?
No, I knew the whole thing by heart, from the movie with Mary Martin.

Oh, right, that wonderful old musical of Peter Pan. “Tender shepherd, tender shepherd...”
It’s good stuff.

But old-school Disney; did you get swept up in Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, or were you raised more with the new liberated girls, in the ‘90s?
I really loved Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, and Cinderella. The first movie I ever saw in a theater was The Little Mermaid. I loved all of them, like every little girl. I remember seeing a production of Cinderella, the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical, when I was about 12, and after the performance the lead still had her ballgown on, she was surrounded by little kids, encircling her, wanting a hug. And when I did that role, a couple years later, to see all the little girls who had dressed up for the show was the greatest thrill. I’ll never forget it.

Sarah Larsen in La Cenerentola rehearsal
Alan Alabastro, photo

Do you think little girls will like this production of La Cenerentola?
Oh, yes. It’s so accessible, whether you’re an adult or a kid...

What about little boys?
Oh, I think so. It’s so much fun! We’re just running around playing. It’s easy to get lost in it.

When you and I were talking before Madama Butterfly, you mentioned how much you love singing close harmonies. You get to do a lot of that in La Cenerentola.
This is my dream come true. I love ensemble operas like this, and Così, or the Flower Duet in Butterfly. There’s something, physically, about making music with someone in that close, tight harmony, which makes me so happy.

And that’s all you do, in this opera, your character doesn’t sing her own aria...
That’s all I do, and I am so happy about that!

Have you ever done so much patter singing?
No. I had to work really hard, and I’m thankful for the education I got, specifically in my Master’s program, about how to approach text, because there are so many words flying by so quickly when you’re singing patter. Richard Bado, who was my instructor at Rice University, would make us break it down starting from the end of the phrase. For example, when we’re singing “Don Ramiro ha da cascar,” I’ll start working on just the ‘-car,” then “cascar,” then “da cascar,” then “ha da cascar,” like that.

In terms of the muscle memory, the repetition...
Yes, because it’s so easy, if you get off even by one syllable, it just all goes away.

That must be fun, too...there must be a thrill to singing patter, like doing crazy coloratura.
Yes, Don Magnifico has a ridiculous amount of patter, in his arias, and I’m finding I have to concentrate to stay in the scene, because I’m so, “How on earth is he doing that!?!” I want to stand up and clap for him...but I can’t.

Finally, Viva Verdi! We’re looking forward to this great Verdi concert with our Young Artists next spring...what will you be singing?
I’ll be singing Flora, we’ll be doing the first act of La traviata. And a couple of arias, one from Nabucco, Fenena’s aria “Oh dischuiso è il firmamento,” and the Preziosilla aria from La forza del destino, “Rat-a-plan.” I’m really excited about that—it’s lots of fun, and she interacts with the chorus.

Sarah Larsen was a singing gypsy when she made her mainstage debut as Mercédès in Carmen last year, here with David Krohn as Dancaïre
Elise Bakketun, photo

She’s the gypsy who’s getting the whole camp riled up about going to war...
Yes. Actually, the first musical I ever did, in 8th grade, was called The Play’s the Thing, and I played a character called “Forza,” who was a gypsy. That’s all I really remember about it. But my musical career is coming full circle! [laughs] That concert is going to be terrific—the whole last act of Rigoletto is going to be there, plus a trio from Don Carlo. I’m looking for a nice dress!

The Cinderella Stories

Rossini’s terrific opera La Cenerentola is a Cinderella-story like none other. Those who are only familiar with Disney’s Cinderella may find Rossini’s story a bit strange—there’s no fairy godmother, no wicked stepmother no magic, not even a glass slipper. And Rossini is far more interested in the Prince, and the character’s need to find a woman who loves him for himself and not for his riches and rank, than Disney. (The psychology of Rossini’s story, with its nobility slumming it, has much more in common with Disney’s Aladdin than its Cinderella!) But Rossini’s story, written by his friend Jacopo Ferretti, is one of the best bel canto opera librettos, and a perfectly intriguing Cinderella-story.

Scholars in Rossini’s day were delighted to discover that the same stories appeared over and over again in cultures all around the world. People import stories and literature; plus, the really great stories, the ones that express human truths common to all people everywhere, develop simultaneously. Out of the hundreds of versions of the Cinderella story, here are summaries of a few of my own favorites. What are the simple human truths shared by all these versions of the story?

The Charles Perrault Version (France, late 1600s; image: Gustav Doré)

A young woman's father takes on a second wife, a spiteful, scornful woman with two equally nasty daughters, who are as ugly as they are hateful. The new ladies of the house mistreat the heroine, forcing her to cook and clean and calling her names such as “Cendrillon” (Girl of the Cinders, Cinderella). When her stepsisters are invited to an important ball at the palace, Cinderella wishes she could come too; and behold! her wish is fulfilled. For her fairy godmother appears, clothes Cinderella in a fine dress with glass slippers, and turns a pumpkin into a carriage so that Cindrella can make a grand appearance. The prince falls madly in love with her, but she dashes away at the stroke of midnight, afraid that her magic costume will disappear and he will see her as she really is. She leaves him with one of her glass slippers. The prince visits all the young ladies in the country, and recognizes Cinderella because hers is the only foot which will fit the glass slipper. They are married and live happily ever after.

The Brothers Grimm Version (Germany, early 1800s)
Charles Perrault adapted and sanitized a more earthy, brutal fairy-tale which made it into the Brothers Grimm collection in the early years of the nineteenth century. In the German version of the story, Cinderella (“Aschenputtel” auf Deutsch) is accustomed to escaping from the cruelty of her stepmother and stepsisters by visiting the grave of her mother. She plants a twig near the grave, and waters it with her tears until it grows into a beautiful tree. The birds who inhabit the tree befriend Cinderella and help her out.

For example, when Cinderella's stepmother tells Cinderella she must separate some beans and ashes which have been mixed together, the birds fly down and perform this brainless task in a second. The birds give Cinderella her beautiful ball gown, and they help her get her prince as well. When the prince visits Cinderella's home to test the golden slipper on Cindrella's stepsisters, each sister in turn chops off part of her foot so that it can fit into the slipper. Both times, the chattering birds direct the prince's attention to the blood gushing out of his fiancée's slipper, and this gruesome spectacle indicates, in each case, that this woman is not the predestined bride. At the end of the story, when the prince marries Cinderella, the birds fly down and peck out the eyes of the wicked step-sisters.

In Into the Woods, the brilliant fairy-tale musical from 1986, Sondheim and Lapine include the Grimm scene of the step-sisters being blinded by the birds. Image credit: mbrocious.wordpress.com

Rhodopis (Ancient Egypt)

The world’s oldest written Cinderella story dates back to classical antiquity; it was written down by a Greek geographer who was a contemporary of Julius Caesar and Jesus, and seems to take place five centuries before that, during the heyday of ancient Athens. Rhodopis (the name means “rosy-cheeked”), our Cinderella character in this story, was a Greek maiden, kidnapped by pirates and sold as a slave in Egypt. Her master, a kindly, ineffectual old man, admires her dancing and gives her a pair of rose-red golden slippers, oblivious to the fact his gift only makes Rhodopis even more unpopular among the other servants and slaves in the household. They prevent her from attending a great festival in Memphis, the capitol; instead, she must do all the chores. She is washing clothes down on the banks of the Nile when a falcon, the god Horus in disguise, swoops down and flies off with one of her slippers. The falcon flies to the celebration and drops the slipper in the Pharaoh’s lap. So the Pharaoh takes it as a sign from on high and a clue to whom he should marry. He tries the slipper on every maiden in all Egypt, including Cinderella’s unpleasant fellow slaves, and when it fits Rhodopis’ foot, she becomes his bride. (Illustration credit: Jillian Gillian)

Yè Xiàn (Medieval China)

This version of the story, written down around 850 A.D., tells of a much earlier time, when people lived in caves along the Pacific coast of what is now China. The painting is by Janet Goodchild-Cuffley.

A girl named Yè Xiàn loses her father and is raised by her abusive step-mother. The girl takes pity on a beautiful fish she finds one day, and under her care the fish grows bigger and bigger and more and more beautiful. But one day, Yè Xiàn's stepmother kills the fish and eats it. A mysterious man appears out of the sky and tells Yè Xiàn that the bones of the fish will grant her wishes. So she wishes for a cloak sewn from feathers and a pair of golden shoes, and wears her new clothes to a festival. When she gets there, however, she runs into her stepmother, who had told her to stay behind and guard the fruit trees. Yè Xiàn flees so quickly she leaves behind one of her golden shoes. The missing shoe comes to the attention of the ruler of a nearby kingdom, who is astonished by how small it is. (In this culture, women were supposed to have dainty little feet. Sometimes they mutilated their own bodies in pursuit of this ideal.) He has his men find Yè Xiàn and bring her to him, and he makes her his chief wife. Her stepmother and stepsister are killed by a rain of fiery stones. Their burial ground becomes a holy place, and it is said that a young man who prays at this spot will marry the woman he most desires.

The Rough-Faced Girl (Algonquin)

An Algonquin chief had three daughters. The eldest was spiteful and nasty and liked to torture her youngest sister. She burnt her sister's hands, feet, and face with hot cinders so frequently people called the youngest sister "the Rough-Faced Girl" after the many scars on her face. The three sisters heard tell of an invisible man who lived in a lodge by the shore of the lake. The man, it was said, would marry any girl who could see him. The two elder sisters decided to try their luck; they dressed in their finest clothes and introduced themselves to the invisible man's sister, who was the only person in the world who could see him. She took them down to the lakeshore, and when he appeared, she asked the girls if they could see her brother. "Of course," they said. "What is his shoulder strap made of?" she asked. "A piece of rawhide," answered the eldest sister. And with that, she knew they were lying and sent them home. The next day, the Rough-Faced Girl made herself some clothes out of sheets of birch bark, took a pair of her father's moccasins, and went to meet the invisible man. The people in her village gave the ugly creature a hard time, but the invisible man's sister welcomed her and took her down to the lake to meet her brother. "Do you see him?" she asked, when he appeared. "I do, indeed– and he is wonderful!" she answered. "And what is his sled-string?" asked the sister. "It is the Rainbow," replied the Rough-Faced Girl. "And what is his bow-string?" "It is the Spirit's Road—the Milky Way." "So you have seen him," said the invisible man's sister. She took the Rough-Faced Girl home and bathed her, and suddenly all the scars were washed away from her body, her hair grew out again, and she was more beautiful than any other woman. When the invisible one entered the wigwam, the Rough-Faced Girl, rough-faced no longer, was waiting for him, and he took her to wife. (Rafe Martin's beautiful retelling of this story is available at http://www.amazon.com/Rough-Face-Girl-Rafe-Martin/dp/0698116267.)

Vasilissa the Beautiful (Russian)

A Russian fairy-story (illustration, right, by Ivan Bilibin) tells of a girl named Vasilissa, whose dying mother blesses her and gives her an enchanted doll that responds to food, drink, and gentle words. Vasilissa's father remarries, and the new stepmother forces Vasilissa to perform hard labor, in the hopes of breaking Vasilissa's spirit and desecrating her beauty. But Vasilissa is helped by her magic doll, and she remains beautiful while her stepmother and step-sisters grow uglier and uglier. When Vasilissa's father leaves the kingdom on a business trip, the wicked stepmother sends Vasilissa into the forest to ask the evil witch Baba Yaga for some fire. (Baba Yaga, a popular figure in Russian folk tales, is a cannibal who lives in a but that stands on chicken legs. The Dawn, the Sun, and the Evening are her servants, and she rides through the forest in a mortar and pestle, a kitchen appliance used to grind up herbs.)

Baba Yaga keeps Vasilissa with her for three days; each day the witch threatens to eat Vasilissa if she fails to perform some impossible task. The magic doll helps Vasilissa, and eventually the witch lets her go. She gives Vasilissa a glowing skull, which sets fire to Vasilissa's wicked stepmother and her step-sisters. All three burn up, but Vasilissa escapes unharmed. She moves in with an older seamstress, learns the old lady's craft, and becomes the greatest weaver in the world. She sews a shirt so beautiful that it is fit to be worn only by the Tsar himself. When the Tsar sees the shirt, he falls in love with Vasilissa; they are married, and Vasilissa's father, who has returned from across the sea, marries Vasilissa's friend the old seamstress.

Pretty Woman (Modern Hollywood)

Billed as a modem retelling of the Cinderella story, this film (Photo credit: PR Photos, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc) centers around the relationship between a beautiful prostitute, Vivian, and a wealthy executive, Edward. Finding himself completely unable to love any woman, Edward hires Vivian as a female escort, to appear at social gatherings with him and sleep with him for money. A friendly hotel manager, a fairy godfather of sorts, helps Vivian purchase a fancy new wardrobe, and she proceeds to stun everyone in Edward's social circle with her beauty and her happy, carefree personality. (Of course Edward takes her to a performance of Verdi's La traviata, where she has a wonderful experience at her first opera.) By the end of the film Vivian manages to redeem Edward; he gives up his cutthroat career arranging hostile corporate takeovers and enters manufacturing. In the final scene, Edward picks Vivian up in his white limo and the two of them drive off together into the sunset.

If you'd like to share more favorite Cinderella stories, please add them in the comments!

Director Joan Font on La Cenerentola

Seattle Opera is very happy to welcome Joan Font, Artistic Director of the Barcelona-based theater collective Comediants, who is now hard at work directing La Cenerentola in Seattle. Font's production of Rossini's charming fairy-tale opera first took the stage in 2007 in Houston, and has since delighted audiences in Cardiff, Barcelona, Geneva, Brussels, and Toronto. The production, like all Comediants' work, aims at creating a "theater of the senses": of colors, smells, and textures, yet also a theater that provokes. By juxtaposing the simplicity of myths or tales with the complexity of modern life, they aim to provoke optimism and rediscovery, to open people's eyes and let them see the world as a wonderful house of culture and friendship that must be cared for before it is too late. Mr. Font has graciously allowed us to post his introduction to La Cenerentola:

THE TIMELESSNESS OF LA CENERENTOLA
The basis for La Cenerentola is a tale by Charles Perrault in 1697. This tale has become a classic and tells a universal story, that of a girl who is mistreated by her own family and, thanks to a fairy's magic, can see her dream come true: being the love object of a prince who will take her out of her poverty and servitude and crown her as princess and queen. From this legendary tale, the musician Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) and the librettist Jacopo Ferretti created a delightful opera, La Cenerentola, which premiered at the Teatro Valle in Rome on the 25th of February 1817, when Rossini was just 25 years old. This opera does not respect the original tale with regard to Cenerentola's magical transformation helping her to alter her fate, but it does conserve the whole plot and social concept of the original. A ruined family with a stepfather (Don Magnifico), absolutely at the limit of reality and who is always recalling the past, a man without scruples, absurd, conceited and cruel but with outstanding strength, who lives for his two natural daughters, Clorinda and Tisbe, stupid characters who are only interested in escaping from their miserable lives by finding some aristocrat who wants to marry them... And within this decadent world lives Cenerentola, representing good manners, simplicity, truth and generosity. In this situation appears a key person called Alidoro (the character replacing the fairy in the original), a wise philosopher, advisor to Prince Ramiro who is looking for the best woman for him... And this is where the life of Angelina, La Cenerentola, starts to change. There is the fun idea of changing roles to discover the truth, as the valet Dandini and Prince Ramiro swap places. Here we can observe the hypocrisy and falseness associated with power.

From La Cenerentola: The (fake) prince arrives, in full pageantry, to escort the ladies to the ball

There is a mix of different themes in this delightful opera: the grey, sad reality of the characters' everyday lives at home; the opulence and magnificence of the "royals"; the clash of these two worlds colliding; the comic quality of these realities given their exaggerated nature, becoming grotesque and ironic; the romanticism, as love enters through the door of the true emotions and feelings between Prince Ramiro and La Cenerentola, and the dream struggling to come true.

We have wanted to take a new look at the dramatic narration of the tale and to accentuate the concept of timelessness. This isn't something that happened purely in the past: it is still valid today and is not the legacy of a single culture but of all humanity. We all dream of escaping poverty and misery, of living full and happy lives, and it's better if love brings about or acts as a catalyst for this change. But this love arrives from the outside as if by magic, and it's from another social class: the highest.

From La Cenerentola: During a lively Rossinian storm, the Prince's carriage overturns as he seeks the mysterious beauty who vanished after the ball

That's why the story is set in an empty, clean space and it's here where the transformations are experienced. In our interpretation of the work everything is a dream, the space is constantly changing and the transformation of each situation in the story is through light. Moreover, there is no specific architecture, not in a defined or temporal sense, but rather there's room for everything. Our aim has been to preserve the basic concept of the original tale as well as respecting the opera version, where Rossini's music adds a real dimension to the feelings, sensations and emotions of the work. This composer takes us along different paths: the comic path with characters and situations distorted from the "real" characters; the romantic path when there are love scenes between the couple, because this is a proper love with passion and desire and it's eager to be revealed; the clash of the characters' contradictory feelings and the conflictive narrative between the plot and the characters, creating different musical moments of great beauty and complexity. The characters are created under the gaze of a Mediterranean light with pure, highly exaggerated colours, a deformation that accentuates the personalities of each of the singers-actors and how they evolve within the tale. A constant metamorphosis occurs in this apparently simple and empty space and one that follows the plot since, in our interpretation, it's all a story imagined by the main character in order to escape from her dramatic situation. We enter a world of dreams-reality-fiction-imagination, combined in such a way that we're not sure where or when we are actually living. Spatial concepts appear within this empty world to bring the scenes to life, from the home of Don Magnifico to the palace, the gardens and the cellar, with the appearance of symbolic elements, essential for giving meaning to the dramatic evolution of the opera: the coaches, the tables laid with food, the throne, the costumes... and so each of the settings, situations and actions of this voyage gradually transmute, going from the particular true reality of the beginning to another new reality, of which we have always dreamed and which might be as real as the authentic reality. The aim of our staging is to show the indefinite nature of a reality that clashes with fantasy and that perhaps, when all is said and done, was only a dream like life itself... Because dreams are but dreams.

--Joan Font
Photos from the Comediants website

Cinderella - Preparing for the Ball

Seattle Opera Costume Shop Manager Susan Davis illustrates the more playful elements of Joan Guillén’s costume designs for Cinderella and demonstrates how some of the characters' looks evolve throughout the opera. She also reveals what the heroine leaves behind at the ball in this version of the story. (Hint: it's not a glass slipper!)



Learn more about Cinderella on the Seattle Opera Website

La Cenerentola Gets Underway

© Brett Coomer, Houston Grand Opera, 2007

Today was the first day of rehearsal for our winter production, Rossini’s La Cenerentola. This brilliant comic opera brings to Seattle a team of artists from around the world, including several singers who are familiar to our audience and several new voices and faces. Making their U.S. debuts with this production are our exciting young conductor, Giacomo Sagripanti, who hails from Rossini’s hometown of Pesaro on Italy’s Adriatic coast, and marvelous mezzo-soprano Daniela Pini, also Italian. Tenor René Barbera, a Texan who lives in Chicago, shares the role of Cinderella’s prince with Edgardo Rocha, a native of Uruguay who lives in Italy. Also making her Seattle Opera debut is mezzo-soprano Karin Mushegain, who sings Cinderella to Rocha’s prince.

This Cinderella-story of course features two wicked sisters, sung in Seattle Opera’s production by Sarah Larsen and Dana Pundt, members of our Young Artists Program. But unlike many Cinderella stories, this one features several great male characters. Instead of a wicked stepmother, Rossini’s Cenerentola has to deal with a wicked stepfather, Don Magnifico. Ms. Pini struggles with Patrick Carfizzi, who gave us such a fine Ping in Turandot this summer, while Valerian Ruminski, who first sang with us in '06 as Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte, makes life hell for Karin Mushegain. The great Brett Polegato, who sang such a nuanced Sharpless in Madama Butterfly last May, returns as Dandini, the Prince’s mischievous sidekick. And Arthur Woodley, fresh off his recent success as Rocco in October’s Fidelio, is back for a role that couldn’t be more different: Alidoro, the benevolent tutor to the prince who functions in this story the way Cinderella’s fairy godmother does in that OTHER Cinderella story. Actually, there are hundreds of variants of the Cinderella story, ranging from cultures such as Ancient Egypt to medieval China. We’ll explore some of them on this blog as we approach Rossini’s unique Enlightenment-era Cinderella.

We'll also speak with each of our singers in these coming weeks as our production takes shape under the leadership of Maestro Sagripanti and our brilliant artistic team: director Joan Font, designer Joan Guillén, and choreographer Xevi Dorca. These three gentlemen from Barcelona first created this production several years ago for opera companies in Houston, Barcelona, Cardiff, and Geneva, and opera fans in Toronto and Brussels have also enjoyed its colorful, sweet story-telling and delightful sense of humor. Seattle (and after us, Los Angeles) is excited to be next in line for the production!

Teachers Take On La Cenerentola at Professional Development Workshop This Weekend

"What could be more pleasant than getting together with other teachers who love both teaching and opera to learn about an upcoming opera? The teachers are experienced experts in their fields; I always learn new things, even when it's an opera I know very well, from the discussion and from Rob McClung's insights into the opera and the music and Seattle Opera’s PowerPoint presentations. At the last workshop, the discussion was so interesting no one wanted to stop, so we went overtime. That's what happens when teachers who are part of the Experience Opera Program get together; it's a very informative, warm, and collegial gathering of kindred spirits."
 

— Jim Schindler, Woodinville High School

This Saturday, 10–11:30 am, Seattle Opera’s Education Department hosts the next in its series of FREE professional development workshops for educators. This workshop will explore Gioachino Rossini’s 1817 opera La Cenerentola, the next production in Seattle Opera’s 2012/13 season.

These 90-minute workshops offer educators the opportunity to explore each opera produced by Seattle Opera. Workshop participants come from a variety of backgrounds in the humanities, including teachers of English as well as of foreign languages, history and the fine arts. The workshop includes presentation and group discussion, incorporating history, politics, language, literature, stagecraft, visual art and music, in order to connect each opera to a variety of school subjects. Each participant receives reference materials, further reading, and a PowerPoint presentation full of images, audio clips and information about the opera. These workshops are a great primer for anyone planning on attending a Seattle Opera production and are chock-full of creative ideas for enhancing school curricula through the arts.

In Saturday’s workshop, we’ll explore how Rossini assembled La Cenerentola, an entirely charming and entertaining opera, in just three weeks. We'll learn more about the world of nineteenth-century Italian opera, where life onstage often mirrored the frenzied world around it.

We'll discuss the theatrical and musical traditions that influenced the dramaturgy of La Cenerentola; musical characterization and character development; performance practice and subject matter. We’ll engage in active listening to recognize the structure of the music and spend time creating activities for students to further their appreciation of not only La Cenerentola, but, more widely, music, language and drama.

The workshop, which happens at Seattle Opera’s Rehearsal Studio at 200 Terry Ave. N, begins at 10 am on Saturday, December 8. To sign up, please e-mail education@seattleopera.org. Parking will be available on Terry Avenue between John Street and Thomas Street, as well as in the Seattle Opera office parking lot at 1020 John Street. Future professional development opportunities for teachers are listed on our website.