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Cendrillon (Paris, 2022) final (probably) thoughts

a few extra thoughts on the 2022 Paris Cendrillon I just watched:

-I am SEVERELY pissed off that the camera looked away at the end when the Prince and Lucette are reunited because after such an insane level of gay affection between the two of them since the instant they met you KNOW they would have kissed here. they had to. and yet we can’t see it. homophobia i tell you!!!

-that said this one is FANTASTICALLY gay, like the Prince and Lucette basically never stop touching each other and cuddling and hugging and smooshing noses and it’s just !!!! so lovely !!!!

-the production and set had such a fantastical and eccentric steampunk vibe. Madame seems to be some kind of inventor, and the chorus at the top of Act I are all her employees who clearly are not fans of working for her and dealing with her strange inventions. The one we see here apparently makes fancy pink dresses and curly blond wigs and if you step into one tube you come out the other wearing the clothes. she demonstrates by using the cat. we’re not sure what happens to the cat after it’s dressed. the sisters come out okay so we can hope the cat does too.

None of this seems to impact the rest of the story much or be making a statement other than giving us a unique look at the stepmother character (more on that below) and also just being a fun and very different setting for this story. The scene at the palace is more traditional-looking. I can’t really tell what the “forest” scene is supposed to be or what’s going on with some of those props and effects; guess I’ll just have to watch it again. oh no.

-The cast is great solid 10/10 i love all of these people.

Kathleen Kim said La Fée is one of her favorite roles and you can really tell. She absolutely nails the vocals. it brings me to tears. and she handles the strange, ambiguous incarnation of the character in two very different but equally compelling ways (here and in the Met 2018 one).

Tara Erraught needs to be recorded more. the first time I heard her open her mouth I was like “WHYYYYY DID THEY NOT FILM HER NICKLAUSSE” (yeah yeah I know they’d already filmed the Sher production twice but still). anyway she was sooo cute and sweet here, so awkward and silly and loving. and I think her voice matches the character really well. Maybe they’ll put this one on audio????

when I found out that Anna Stephany was going to be the Prince in this I actually screamed because though I’ve not seen her in a ton of things she’s definitely one of the cutest Annios ever recorded and her Sesto is pretty great too (AND SO GAY???) so like. sign me the heck up. and she did not disappoint one bit. Her portrayal is hilarious and tragic at the same time and so charming (I had to) and sweet and :’) I actually had to pause the video to tell my roommate this diva was giving me heart palpatations and no I was not distracted by her legs. also the whole things with the sneakers was just. so cute. I loved it.

I’ve seen Lionel Lhote as Pandolfe before (in the Glyndebourne one) and tbh I found that portrayal to be more sympathetic but I’m sure it has to do with the differences in production concept (more on that later) and he’s no less compelling here, just different. he’s put-upon but not altogether cowed. he’s actually kind of checked out. which is interesting and again more on that later.

Daniela Barcellona! I have seen her only once or twice, most notably as Malcom in La donna del la Lago so I was very interested to see how she played Madame de la Haltière. the strangeness of her portrayal goes along with the strangeness of this production. she’s not full-on mad scientist but I get the feeling she’s less “abusive mother/wife” and more someone who’s become so obsessed with her work she’s lost touch with her family (and may be losing it a little bit mentally too). Like Pandolfe, she seems a little checked out and seems less overtly mean than she is neglectful. In fact I rarely see her interacting with Lucette. Tbh I got some Ms. Trunchbull vibes from her at the start, partially because of her fisrt outfit I think, but also because of her pompous silliness and comical aggression. I’m still not entirely sure what precisely is going on with her, but it was enjoyable to watch.

The sisters! Okay, the sisters.

THIS has to be the most interesting portrayal of the “evil” stepsisters I’ve ever seen. A lot of times they’re nasty, sometimes just silly, and almost all of the time they follow their mother around like puppies, soak in all of her attention, and are almost as demanding as her when it comes to Lucette and Pandolfe. Here they couldn’t be more different. It seems this would directly oppose the libretto--and it does--but the way they played with it was fascinating and overall compelling. (I feel like I’ve been using that word a lot.)

The sisters sing along with their mother a lot in this opera; in fact almost all of their lines are in response to their mother or simply repeating what she says. Normally this is portrayed as them being their mother’s little minions or copycats. here, though, it seemed they were repeating her statements not because they’re hanging onto her every word but because they’re scared that if they don’t, they’ll suffer the same fate as Lucette. They clearly disagree with much of what she says (in fact much or their parroting of her comes along with eye-rolls), but if they don’t do exactly as she wants, she makes it clear she’s unhappy with them. They don’t even seem that interested in going to the ball and meeting the prince; they’re reluctant to get dressed for the party (though that might have something to do with the way in which their mother plans to dress them) and once they get to the party, they have little interest in the men there, at one point even preferring to dance with each other than anyone else there. They don’t mock their father like Madame does, and they’re not scared of him either. In the scene where he chases them out and they all scream musically, here it’s staged as them showing their frustration with him that he doesn’t trust them to take care of their sister. this gets an interesting resolution later on.

In addition to all this, there are several moments where they show they actually have a genuine, sweet, caring relationship with Lucette. Lucette is clearly worried for them when their mother puts the girls into her contraption to get them dressed for the ball. When the stepsisters leave for the party, they give Lucette a hug and blow her kisses as they leave. During the party we can see them sneaking some extra food, and when they get back to the house they try to give it to Lucette. When Lucette faints after hearing the Prince apparently doesn’t love her, the sisters rush to her side (and here’s where Pandolfe chases them off). Later, once night has fallen and Lucette has run away, the sisters go to her bed with the food they’ve stolen to give to her, and when they see she’s gone, they start looking frantically around for her. Before the final act there’s an illustrated pantomime of the sisters finding Lucette in the snow and carrying her home. Then, the act opens with them tending to her as she sleeps. Meanwhile, Pandolfe appears to be writing a poem about the ordeal (counting the syllables of his monologue and writing it in a notebook as he goes).

Or course the text here says he is the one that found her, so we can imagine he’s using some poetic license for his work, and we can see the sisters giving him a few annoyed glances. And when Lucette wakes up, the script has her addressing her father and thanking him for caring for her during her ailment. However we, the audience, can clearly see it was her sisters that were taking care of her. But she thinks it was her father because of the way the production stages this. As soon as Lucette begins to stir, before she fully wakes up, the sisters hurry away and usher Pandolfe to her side. Pandolfe gives them a confused look and gestures as if wondering why they don’t want Lucette to know how they cared for her, and the sisters just smile and hold up their hands like they’re saying it’s all you now. They want to give him the credit so he can strengthen his relationship with his daughter. And we can see soemthing kind of click for Pandolfe here. In this production, he’s not as affectionate and protective of Lucette as in some others. (want to see the best operatic father figure? Go watch Laurent Naouri in the 2018 Met one. he makes me cry.) He clearly cares for her, but as mentioned before, he’s a bit checked out. He lets her take care of him rather than the other way around. He’s less attentive to her. Here, the stepsisters are giving him a chance to redeem himself in the wake of a near-tragedy.

I thought at first that making the sisters nice to Lucette was minimizing the abuse the character traditionally deals with, and I’ve always appreciated how this story brings to light the struggles of youth stuck in abusive situations. But this narrative paints a different picture that’s no less powerful. Madame here is clearly a neglectful mother and wife, never bothering to check in with the true desires of her biological daughter, and not attending at all to the welfare of her stepdaughter. She barely gives Pandolfe a second thought. She doesn’t specifically see to Lucette’s abuse, but she doesn’t do anything to change it.

Pandolfe, meanwhile, is painted as somewhat of a neglectful father. He expresses despair over Lucette’s plight, but he does not seem very motivated to do anything about it, and again, in their scenes together, seems more willing to let her wait on him and comfort him than make an attempt to be her protector or advocate. The bit after their duet in Act 3 as they talk about moving back home was especially emotional to me, as Lucette lets her father lie down on the couch and covers him with a blanket before she makes her plan to leave alone. Normally, we would see the father treating her with such tender care as he tries to make up for what her mother does. Here, she’s the one putting forth even more emotional energy when she’s already the one suffering.

Conversely, the sisters actively try to comfort Lucette in her despair. A narrative that’s less often heard, I think, is the solidarity that can be seen between siblings who share abusive parents. The stepsisters are clearly in a better position; they’re not compelled to sleep in a tunnel or wait on everyone at home and at work. But here they don’t disdain Lucette at all. They show her more love than either of the parents. They even experience a bit of the neglect as well when they occasionally try to appeal to their mother but are dismissed. It’s a different kind of dynamic that does not make less of the abuse suffered by Lucette, but paints it at another angle.

maybe that was more than needed to be said on the topic but as someone who works with abused kids and dysfunctional families, it really resonated with me.

ANYWAY

overall I really enjoyed this :) I wouldn’t suggest it as someone’s first encounter with this opera, but it’s a very interesting take and the cast is fantastic.

#anyway there's my two cents :)#Cendrillon #Cendrillon opera #Cinderella #Jules Massenet #Henri Caïn #opera #opera tag #opera reactions