In the final stretch of a season generous with not only operatic incentives, the Gran Teatre del Liceu has premiered a version of La cenerentola by Gioacchino Rossini that features Emma Dante's captivating staging. The fable, which for centuries ---in very different contexts, and with variations--- was orally preserved, would eventually be fixed in various anthologies, such as that of Charles Perrault. Aware of it, Jacopo Ferretti, who had to write the libretto against the current, chose to replace some of its most iconic elements. For example, the scenes of trying on shoes disappear, due to the prohibition of exhibiting a naked female foot on stage (it must still be true that our ancestors experienced a certain emotion when they saw women get on a tram, when the skirt rose a foot and a half from the ground).
The power of imagination remains deliciously inscrutable, blessed perhaps by advances in neuroscience. Biochemical incitement allies with fantasy in an unpredictable way, and thus the change of iconic elements seems not to harm the plot, being compensated with other narrative instances, such as the presence of thrilling music, which confirms sound vibration as one of the tools that most effectively activate the psychophysiological mechanism of emotion.
Nor is there, in La cenerentola by Rossini, any trace of the astonishing transformation of the carriage into a pumpkin, the fairy godmother gives way to the character of the tutor Alidoro ---magic is replaced by a judicious gentleman, who embodies experience and wisdom, like the Mozartian Don Alfonso--- and the stepmother in turn is replaced by an enraged stepfather ---named Don Magnifico, ironically--- whose violence is uncomfortable because he also embodies the buffo element, which he largely shares with the character of Dandino. A surprising character, who inevitably reminds us of Leporello ---in another dramma giocoso, no less memorable--- and who lends himself to impersonating the prince ---here, Don Ramiro--- so that he can discover if the love of his suitors is true or animated by his position of power.
Rossini's music conveys this attempt at flight through the oscillation between repetition and difference, in an evolution of materials in crescendo, paradigmatically freneticThe doubling or mirror play, one of the most functional assets in the deployment of the mimesis, power from the alternation the identification with the characters. A tragicomic dialectic, showing different aspects of our own being. We are the prince and the vassal, the selfish sister and the generous one, the black swan that could exploit its beauty on the opportune occasion. We are potentially free subjects, intuiting that in that autonomy lies an essential part of personal fulfillment, but also we are subject to internal gears, of which one is only partially conscious, rarely responsible.
Emma Dante's staging captivates from the beginning of La cenerentola with the proliferation of mechanical creations or simulacra ---dancers emerging from their music boxes--- that surround the main characters, rehearsing the same gestures, and that must lead them from a state of submission or solitude to the fullness of love. The spring, key or string that sets in motion the mechanism of these copies of oneself, functions as a reminder of energy dependence, which the chimerical notion of perpetuum mobile defies, as a remote construct of that metaphysical notion ---that of an unmoved mover--- that formerly defined God.
The mechanistic theses derived from Cartesianism ---and the consequent fever for automatons up to robotics, today--- make explicit the highest human aspirations, those directed towards an infinitude that, although conceivable through thought, is condemned to material frustration. Like an impossibly casual echo, Rossini's music conveys this attempt at flight through the oscillation between repetition and difference, in an evolution of materials in crescendo paradigmatically frantic, which alternates the lyricism of legato singing with the recurrent interruption of staccato. This compulsive character can be found in the machine ---designed or programmed, but which eventually jams or dislocates--- as well as in the human being; in principle free, but semi-consciously confined in habits that threaten to reduce him to a predictable being, without possibility for genuine, unconditioned, original action.
The question of originality becomes problematic when the copy stands as a symptom of the impossibility of those legitimate aspirations, whether metaphysical or involved in the creation of a logos of its own. Coincidence or not, in the music of Cenerentola resonate practically identical passages to those Rossini conceived shortly before for his Barbiere, justified self-borrowings due to the request for an opera composed in haste, as it had a premiere date before it was even finished, scheduled for the Roman carnival of 1817. Although those resources work better in the original, with a spontaneity and freshness that is missed ---converted here into formulas with an air of cliché---, the Liceu Orchestra, under the direction of Giacomo Sagripanti, offered a convincing performance, both in the leading passages and in its accompanying role.
Rossini's skill as an artificer stands out in the ensemble numbers for the pleasure of listeners and singers, immersed in a crossfire of interests that celebrates the dimension of the imbroglioThus, despite the musical déjà vu aftertaste that permeates a good part of the work, especially memorable are the ensemble numbers, in which Rossini's skill as a master artificer stands out for the pleasure of listeners and also singers, immersed in a crossfire of interests that celebrates the dimension of the imbroglio. Tenor Javier Camarena has expressed that Rossini's music "is always in correspondence with emotions and, when one manages to understand this amalgam, one enjoys it, one has fun." In the role of the gallant, always well received by the Liceu audience, he will not disappoint in his new appearance. Nor will Erwin Schrott's Alidoro, whose imposing seriousness contrasts with the irrepressible buffoon that Paolo Bordogna sensationally portrays, Don Magnifico.
Above all, however, the mezzo Maria Kataeva stands out, possessing a timbral and scenic magnetism that translates into her singing, and through her identification with the kind character she embodies. The artistic director of the Liceu, Víctor García de Gomar, has pointed out that this version of the well-known fable, evocative of the aesthetic preciousness of ballet and mechanical creations, also reveals the shadowy aspects of the human being. And it is that, even if there is no hint of corruption in the duo of the protagonists, the unsettling possibility slips in ---present in great productions that address the question of mechanism, Blade Runner exemplarily, with the remote and influential case of The Sandman--- that anyone could be a victim of external forces, in love with a fantasy, be it the idea of love or freedom. Or, even more perverse, of the idea of free love, especially problematic given the Tristanian conditioning that accompanies all true passion.
The performances of the participants in the present production make the plot credible due to their manifestly artificial characterization. Not only are the court of companions of Cinderella and the prince dancer-automatons with their key in their back, but Don Magnifico and the stepsisters, both cruel and ridiculous, will end up bowing to the moral superiority of the subjugated ---her true power---, freed from burdens at the moment she offers clemency and love for vendetta.