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La Cenerentola
Metropolitan Opera House, Sat, October 8, 2005
Debut : Antonello Allemandi, Simone Alberghini
La Cenerentola (24)
Gioachino Rossini | Jacopo Ferretti
- Angelina
- Olga Borodina
- Prince Ramiro
- Barry Banks
- Dandini
- Simone Alberghini [Debut]
- Don Magnifico
- Simone Alaimo
- Clorinda
- Rachelle Durkin
- Tisbe
- Patricia Risley
- Alidoro
- Ildar Abdrazakov
- Recitative Accompanist
- Robert Myers
- Conductor
- Antonello Allemandi [Debut]
- Production
- Cesare Lievi
- Designer
- Maurizio Bal?
- Lighting Designer
- Gigi Saccomandi
- Choreographer
- Daniela Schiavone
- Stage Director
- Sharon Thomas
La Cenerentola received six performances this season.
Production photos of La Cenerentola by Marty Sohl / Metropolitan Opera.
Review 1:
Review of Leighton Kerner in the January 2006 issue of OPERA NEWS
An almost entirely new cast, including two debuts, sparked the return to the Met of Rossini's "La Cenerentola" on October 8. The most attention was directed to Olga Borodina's first New York Angelina. Although general manager Joseph Volpe
told the audience beforehand that the Russian mezzo was not well but would sing nonetheless, she sounded in top form, at least until a slightly gritty high B at the very end of the concluding rondo, "Non pi? mesta." That note hardly mattered, considering her wondrous performance. As expected, her more introverted singing was richly mellow and moving, but her allegro pages had all the agility and accuracy one could want. She also acted the role touchingly and wittily in Cesare Lievi's 1997 production, which is often clever but sometimes silly in its sort of post-Mussolini updating.
Milanese conductor Antonello Allemandi brought much brio but not quite ensemble control to his Met debut. The other company newcomer, Simone Alberghini, as Dandini, began with a rather nondescript bass-baritone but gained impact in Act II and was always a poised comedian. Barry Banks, as Prince Ramiro, endowed our heroine's hero with nice temperament and a secure tenor technique.
Bass Simone Alaimo has added welcome vocal discipline and theatrical taste to his Don Magnifico, and Rachelle Durkin and Patricia Risley sang Angelina's vain half-sisters with solid musicianship but acted a little too goofily. The big surprise was Borodina's husband, bass Ildar Abdrazakov, as Angelina's enabler, Alidoro, whom this staging snakes a real angel rather than a figurative one (The house program's synopsis notes that "Alidoro" is Italian For "wings of gold," so there you are.) Abdrazakov, constantly elegant and benign, brought the house down with "La del ciel nell'arcano profondo," the spectacular aria Rossini wrote for an 1821 revival of the 1817 opera, replacing a briefer, more ordinary number, farmed out to Luca Agolini, who also wrote the present "dry" recitatives.' (Rossini never had time to write those.)
Search by season: 2005-06
Search by title: La Cenerentola,
Met careers
- Antonello Allemandi [Conductor]
- Olga Borodina [Angelina]
- Barry Banks [Prince Ramiro]
- Simone Alberghini [Dandini]
- Simone Alaimo [Don Magnifico]
- Rachelle Durkin [Clorinda]
- Patricia Risley [Tisbe]
- Ildar Abdrazakov [Alidoro]
- Cesare Lievi [Production]
- Maurizio Bal? [Designer]
- Daniela Schiavone [Choreographer]
- Gigi Saccomandi [Lighting Designer]
- Sharon Thomas [Stage Director]
- Robert Myers [Recitative Accompanist]