La Cenerentola or Goodness Triumphant by Gioachino Rossini
4th and 11th July at the Queensland Conservatorium Theatre.
Lucky enough to be given a ticket to the final Dress Rehearsal (me on TV in photo at right) a week before I was booked to go to an evening performance I was given the chance to see this wonderful production twice. It takes me back to the eighties when I was involved on the peripheries of opera in Queensland and also linked to Opera Australia. I helped entertain singers, threw home parties, arranged opening night parties, did radio shows, wrote articles for newspapers and newsletters arranged concerts and dinners and anything that helped promote Opera. I recall on occasions that although I always bought a season ticket I managed to regularly be given extra tickets by the cast and management or even allowed in by the theatre staff "Are you going in tonight? You might as well". I once saw every single performance of The Barber of Seville one year which was good to compare a change of cast half way through the run.
Cinderella and the very selfish Sisters who were an absolute hoot with some soaring notes belting out during the ensemble pieces.
The whole production was quite inspired and certainly played for some laughs. Generally the voices were excellent and I was particularly impressed by the Egyptian born Bass Baritone Ashraf Sewailam whose resonant voice and twinkle was a joy to watch and hear. The Don Magnifico of the other Bass Baritone Andrew Collis was pure entertaining theatre. Dandini was played wonderfully by Jason Barry-Smith whom I have had the pleasure of meeting in the foyer in recent times as a fellow audience member Benjamin Britten's Midsummer Nights Dream and another concert. He also performed in Britten's War Requiem and has the perfect Peter Pears style voice for that. I believe he trained with Pears some tome back. Wondering about the high C's I was quite stunned by the assured and lovely strong high voice of Tenor Virgilio who played Don Ramiro the Prince.
Another Cenerentola
Coincidentally at the same time as I was attending performances of Cinderella here in Brisbane my friend Bogdan Mihai from Romania was performing in the same opera as the Prince in Stuttgart. Here is a great excerpt showing his beautiful and thrilling talent.
