Mezzosoprano Maria Radoeva will portray Angelina; Hrisimir Damyanov - Prince Ramiro; Atanas Mladenov - Dandini; Stefan Vladimirov - Alidoro; Nikolay Petrov - Don Magnifico; Blagovesta Mekii-Tsvetkova - Tisbe; Maria Pavlova – Clorinda, with the latter debuting in this role. Zhorzh Dimitrov will conduct the performance. Vera Petrova’s elegant directorship makes the audience smile and lifts the mood even in the moments where we’re supposed to feel a bit sad according to the libretto.
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“Cinderella” – the popular fairy tale, has many different versions all over the world and is an interesting topic for writers, composers and movie directors. Folk art scholars have documented over five hundred different versions of the story. The original was published in 1634 but the iterations of Charles Perrault (1697) and the Brothers Grimm (1812) remain the most popular takes on Cinderella.
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Rossini was twenty-five years old when he wrote “Cinderella”, after already created many opera masterpieces such as “The Barber of Seville“, “Tancredi”, “L'italiana in Algeri” and others. The opera “Cinderella” was composed in just three weeks using a libretto by Jacopo Feretti and is consider one of the most exquisite scores, both for vocals and ensemble.
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In the field of music, Cinderella has been interpreted by many authors among which Jules Massenet (the opera “Cinderella” was written in 1894), Sergei Prokofiev (the ballet “Cinderella” was written during 1940s) and Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II who produce the musical of the same name in 1957: first for television and then on stage, with Julie Andrews in the main role.
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In cinema, Cinderella was first adapted at the beginning of the 20th century. In the 1950s, Walt Disney’s animation studio produced a remake of the movie (the first one premiered in 1922 and was only seven minutes long) with a length of seventy-six minutes and an original score. Ilene Woods, the then popular actress and radio host, voiced Cinderella. In this animation, Bavarian king Ludwig II’s castle of Neuschwanstein served as a prototype for the prince’s castle which in turn inspired the Disney studio logo.
