CLASSROOM ACTIVITY. Tale Yes, Fairy No: A Close Look at Changes to the Cinderella Story in La Cenerentola IN PREPARATION CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS

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Teresa Rachel Robinson
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1 CLASSROOM ACTIVITY MOST OF YOUR STUDENTS WILL KNOW THE STORY OF Cinderella. What they may not know is that versions of this story have been told all over the world for hundreds and hundreds of years each with variations, large and small. In this activity, they will closely examine the story as told by Gioachino Rossini and his librettist, Jacopo Ferretti, in the context of other versions. They will consider not only musical selec- details can influence the message of this story. They will: La Cenerentola Rossini s interpretation La Cenerentola in advance of The Met: Live in HD transmission STEPS At heart, La Cenerentola is the story we know as Cinderella. But that story has been told many, many ways over the centuries. The Grimm brothers published their German version, Aschenputtel, between 1812 and 1815, only a few years before Rossini s opera. An Italian Cenerentola had been published nearly two centuries earlier, around Rossini and Ferretti based their interpretation mostly on a version called Cendrillon, published by the French collector of fairy tales, Charles Perrault, in But some aspects of La Cenerentola derive from later adaptations, including a French opera called Cendrillon, which had premiered only seven years earlier, in Most intriguing of all, as your students will discover, at least two critical aspects of La Cenerentola s Cinderella tale seem to have come from the minds of Rossini and Ferretti themselves. IN PREPARATION For this activity, each student will need photocopies of the activity sheet and printed resources provided on pages 27 and 28 of this guide. You will also need the accompanying recording of selections from La Cenerentola. CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS Social Studies (History), Language Arts, and Music LEARNING OBJECTIVES of the Cinderella story presented in this opera may have been introduced on an audience s understanding of the story La Cenerentola in the context of early modern European history in plot and character on narrative and musical possibilities The Met: Live in HD transmission Step 1: This activity is, by and large, a discussion of the Cinderella story as told in La Cenerentola your students are likely to know. The reproducible activity sheet on page 5

2 THE MET: LIVE IN HD EDUCATOR GUIDE LA CENERENTOLA FUN FACT: Cenerentola s true given name, Angelina, is heard only once near the end of Act II. 27 will help them keep track of differences between the opera and other tellings of the story. To jumpstart the process, some items on the activity sheet have been provided in advance. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of La Cenerentola is represented in Track 1 the moment in the story when Prince Ramiro, having searched everywhere, comes upon the woman who he wants to make his wife. Students can read the text and translation, available on the resource sheet, page 28. What s unusual about the Prince s remark here? Remind students that he has just come upon Cinderella, the woman who charmed him the night version of the story with which they re familiar. Most of us expect the That slipper has a long history. Yeh-Shen, the Chinese Cinderella whose story was written down during the Ts ang dynasty (between the years 618 and 907), lost a shoe on her way home. The Cenerentola of Giambattista Basile, recorded in the early 17th century, lost a slipper. About 60 years later, Charles Perrault added a familiar detail: his Cendrillon lost a slipper made of glass. In the Brothers Grimm version, Aschenputtel loses a gold slipper. When La Cenerentola was performed in Paris in 1822, some sniped that Rossini and Ferretti had replaced the slipper with bracelets because their original Roman Cenerentola had unattractive feet. That diva, Gertrude Righete Giorgi, responded by saying the change had been a matter of good taste: in Rome, unlike Paris, it was considered indecent for a lady s foot to be seen in public. Signor Parisian Journalist, she added, should not think that I say this to defend my feet: he does not know me, and if he did, he might say that I have more to gain by adopting the original slipper than by clinging to the bracelet. Ask your students what they make of Ms. Giorgi s explanation. Do they believe that decency could have been the reason for the change? Why else might a bracelet have replaced the famous slipper? 6

3 They can record their reasoning on the activity sheet but warn them that this is a topic you ll be coming back to at the end of the lesson! Step 2: One theme common to all versions of Cinderella, as well as many other folktales and stories, is reversal. The poor girl becomes a princess. La Cenerentola adds several more reversals to the story. For example, the fundamental tale has two settings Cinderella s home and the castle. Traditionally, Cinderella can meet the Prince only when she has been magically transported to his castle. Here, the Prince leaves the castle and meets Cenerentola in her home. After noting this change on their activity sheets, students can develop their own hypotheses as to why this change might have been made and make their own observations as to its effect on the story. One effect the change has on the opera is that it opens a number of interesting possibilities for interaction and song. The relationship between Cenerentola and the Prince can begin much earlier in the story, allowing Rossini to include the duet in Track 2. Here, Cenerentola and the Prince know what the audience does: that they re sharing the same thought. As noted, the Prince s leaving his castle is a reversal in terms of the standard Cinderella story. The excursion involves a second reversal the reversal in apparent social class between Prince Ramiro and his valet Dandini. as the prince. This kind of switch is common in world literature from Odyssey, Odysseus disguises himself when he returns home to Ithaca. Shakespeare used the device in several comedies. Puccini uses it in La Rondine. Mark Twain s The Prince and the Pauper, as well as movie comedies like Freaky Friday and Trading Places, are all based on this principle of role reversal. Even Obi-Wan Kenobe, the sage of Star Wars, disguises himself as a humble hermit. Often social-class reversal is a way for powerful characters to collect honest, candid information, as Prince Ramiro does in La Cenerentola. But the reversal also creates comic opportunities that don t exist in other Cinderella variants: opportunities for the unwitting to embarrass themselves and opportunities for the powerful person s other, in this case Dandini, to revel amusingly in their temporary status. In Track 3, Dandini 7

4 THE MET: LIVE IN HD EDUCATOR GUIDE LA CENERENTOLA does just that, enjoying his task of flirting with all the beautiful women in the kingdom. The muscularity of his song expresses his sense of the role he s playing, but contrasts comically with his words. Most versions of Cinderella feature an evil stepmother. Not La Cenerentola: here the head of household is the stepfather of Cinderella and the father of her stepsisters a character usually absent from the story. This was not an innovation of Rossini and Ferretti; the nasty parent had already changed gender in the 1810 opera Cendrillon (music by Nicolo Isouard, libretto by Charles-Guillaume Étienne). Nonetheless, your students may want to discuss the effects of the two connected changes the mother s absence and the stepfather s presence. For instance, traditional Cinderellas pose a domestic world of women (Cinderella, her stepsisters and her step-mother) against a public world embodied by a man, the Prince. The world here is not as symbolic: are Cenerentola s sufferings more believable when they re associated with a male head of household who s frittered away his fortune and hopes to use the women at his disposal to better the family s state? want to marry one of his daughters off to royalty, but he can imagine his own appointment, by association, to high office. This opens the oppor- of success. Track 4 offers a short excerpt from the aria, in which Don Toward the end of Act I, Rossini and Ferretti introduce another new element: Track 5. It seems that the royal bureaucracy has a record of Cenerentola s existence. What do your students think this announcement position, it creates room for some rather dark humor: The Don tries to explain away the inconvenient fact by insisting his third daughter is dead. Audiences in early 19th-century Europe may have found the register of eligible young women to add a touch of realism. More important than the announcement is the character who brings it the mysterious Alidoro. At the very beginning of the opera, we met offered the generous Cenerentola a blessing. In Track 6 (which comes late 8

Alidoro, dressed as a beggar, visits Cenerentola and her family. (Photo: Beth Bergman) in the opera), Prince Ramiro describes him as a wise and trusted teacher.

5 Alidoro, dressed as a beggar, visits Cenerentola and her family. (Photo: Beth Bergman) in the opera), Prince Ramiro describes him as a wise and trusted teacher. But by that point, audiences know he s much more than that. We expect the Cinderella story to include a mean stepmother. La Cenerentola too. Rossini and Ferretti offer this man, Alidoro! The fairy godmother is not present in all Cinderella tales. Many versions include different wonder-working devices. Giambattista Basile s Cenerentola was dressed for the ball by a magical date tree; the Grimm Brothers Aschenputtel by a hazel. A Scottish Cinderella named Rashin- Coatie was helped by a friendly calf. The familiar fairy godmother was introduced by Charles Perrault, but in 1810, the Isouard/Étienne opera Cendrillon replaced her with this fellow Alidoro. He s a magical character in that opera. He carries a mysterious rose and with it transforms Cinderella for the ball. La Cenerentola s Alidoro is different in one crucial way. Though his name still means wings of gold (and in spite of the fact that this Metropolitan Opera production provides him with golden wings, literally), this Alidoro is neither fairy nor magician. Just as Ramiro describes him, he s a very wise, very learned, mortal man a hero in the spirit of René Descartes, a paragon of Enlightenment. Rossini, it has been reported, wanted every hint of magic stripped from his Cinderella story! The implications of this decision on the plot are difficult to point out in the libretto or recording, because they re matters more of absence than of 9

6 THE MET: LIVE IN HD EDUCATOR GUIDE LA CENERENTOLA action or words. Explain to your students that no mice turn into horses in La Cenerentola. No pumpkin turns into a coach. (In the Met production, the coach is kind of a modular storage unit; Alidoro moves it in and most importantly, as the ball progresses at the Prince s castle, there is no impending stroke of midnight. Cenerentola s gown is just a gown; it won t revert to rags. There s no danger of her being stuck in a pumpkin tied to a small herd of mice. Having noted these changes on their activity sheets, your students can discuss the implications of a Cinderella that takes place entirely in the world of physics and politics as we know them, without supernatural intervention. How might this support the opera s subtitle, La bontà in trionfo ( Goodness triumphant )? Does the change make La Cenerentola more than a fairy tale? Does the absence of magic affect the relationship between the Prince and Cenerentola? Does it place his attraction to the poor girl in a different light? Before they draw conclusions, ask your students to consider again that out. of reason. In light of the traditional Cinderella story, these points beg two questions: The answer comes in Rossini and Ferretti s characterization of Cenerentola. It s a simple but radical change, and it just may be the key to the meaning of the entire opera. Coming early in Act II, it can be heard in Track 7. The scene is the Prince s castle, the night of the ball. Cenerentola has learned that the man she fell in love with was the Prince himself, in 10

7 disguise an event that, of course, does not occur in the standard story. He has just asked for her hand in marriage. In the traditional Cinderella story, that would wrap things up. But this her (somewhat illogically, to be sure, since he knows exactly where she lives!), she has a plan already in mind. Here, our selection begins. Tieni ( Here! ), says Cenerentola. She goes on to mention a matching bracelet. What do your students think is happening? The answer: Cenerentola has brought two identical bracelets to the ball. In Track 7, she gives one to the Prince. In Track 1, we heard the moment on Cenerentola s arm. Together, these two events add up to a major change in the Cinderella story: and the Prince together. It s a plan set in motion by Alidoro, enacted by Cenerentola herself. he s playing out the scenario which Cenerentola initiated the night of the ball. All together, the differences between La Cenerentola and other versions of Cinderella point to: without magic than simply accepting a solution provided by a fairy godmother and a generous, smitten Prince. These make La Cenerentola a very different Cinderella tale, indeed. FOLLOW-UP: For homework, students can take another fairy tale, say Sleeping Beauty or Jack and the Beanstalk, and invent their own 11

The mission of Richmond Ballet is to awaken and uplift the human spirit, both for audiences and artists.

The mission of Richmond Ballet is to awaken and uplift the human spirit, both for audiences and artists. CINDERELLA Richmond Ballet is dedicated to the promotion, preservation, and continuing evolution of the art form of ballet. Richmond Ballet strives to keep meaningful works of dance alive and to produce