Here's a story for the ages. A lovely but lowly kitchen maid dreams her Prince Charming will come one day to take her away from her miserable life and hectoring relatives.
Along the way there's a silver slipper (or maybe it's a bracelet), a fairy godmother (no, make that an evil stepfather) and a clock that strikes midnight (or thereabouts).
Sound familiar? Of course it does -- it's the Cinderella story, only not quite the way your Mom told it to you way back when.
Instead, it's the way composer Gioacchino Rossini told it in "La Cenerentola" (that's "Cinderella" in Italian), which opens tonight at the Lyric Theater in the first of six performances by the Baltimore Opera Company.
"Cenerentola" is one of those comic operas whose premise is so far-fetched that, like its fairy-tale namesake, you can't help but like it, even though you don't for a minute believe in fairy godmothers and silver slippers.
Rossini changes the details around -- the lost-and-found slipper becomes a silver bracelet, for example, and the fairy godmother becomes a princely adviser (think James Carville with a heart) -- but it's still basically the same romantic rags-to-riches story.
What makes "Cenerentola" work is the title character, performed tonight by mezzo-so-prano Vivica Genaux, an up-and-coming young singing actress whose good looks and sparkling stage presence are as striking as the coloratura fireworks her character tosses off at every opportunity.
Genaux is at home in the Italian bel canto style (the phrase literally means "beautiful singing") Rossini wrote in, having sung, in addition to Angiolina, the hapless char-girl in "La Cenerentola," the role of Rosina in the "Barber of Seville" and Isabella in "The Italian Girl in Algiers," Rossini's two most popular other comic operas.
But in comparison to Isabella and Rosina, who are both pretty clear about getting what they want by cunningly manipulating the men around them, Angiolina of "La Cenerentola" is almost too pure for her own good.
"I don't believe in a brash Cinderella," Genaux said of her character. "Cinderella's strength is her dream of a good-hearted prince who also wants someone who is good. And she really believes this will happen to her, it's deeply rooted in her character.
"The only way you can bring that out is if you really believe goodness is going to win. So that's the way I play her."
