Music Review | ’Cendrillon’: City Opera Pays Tribute To Sills With A Comic ?50s Cinderella

Along with Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera presented the thoughtful, free public tribute to Beverly Sills at the Metropolitan Opera House on Sept. 16.

Frédéric Antoun as Prince Charmant and Cassandre Berthon as Cendrillon in “Cendrillon,” Massenet’s version of “Cinderella,” reimagined by Renaud Doucet.

Audience members gathered on the terrace after the performance to hear former colleagues honor Beverly Sills.

But City Opera wanted to pay its own tribute as well to its greatest star and most influential general director. So on Saturday afternoon the company dedicated the first performance of its new production of Massenets Cendrillon to Sills, adding a musical tribute at the end of the opera: a performance onstage of Make Our Garden Grow, from Bernsteins Candide.

Afterward there was a Champagne reception for the entire audience in the New York State Theaters promenade, with speeches from colleagues, a montage of photographs and video selections from Sillss performances.

Sills, who made her debut with the company 52 years ago today, would probably have liked the idea that a tribute to her was hooked to a new production. Cendrillon, Massenets affecting and whimsical retelling of the Cinderella fairy tale, introduced in Paris in 1899, is exactly the kind of overlooked and worthy opera that Sills brought to the public when she ran the company. And it was with a performance of Cendrillon in 1983 that she introduced supertitles to American opera audiences.

The production was the news, naturally, and the news was mixed. Directed and choreographed by Renaud Doucet, with sets and costumes by André Barbe (originally designed for lOpéra National du Rhin), this bold staging sets the tale in the 1950s. Despite some wonderfully fanciful touches, it too often opts for madcap silliness.

Still, the production mostly allows the tenderness of this seldom-heard Massenet charmer to come through, thanks to the beguiling company debuts of Cassandre Berthon as Cendrillon (Cinderella) and Frédéric Antoun as Prince Charmant (Prince Charming), and also to the sensitive, subtle and lively conducting of George Manahan.

A sizable contingent of opera buffs find many of Massenets works musically thin and cloying. But this tale of enchantment, gentle comedy and romantic yearning brought out the best in him. There are sublime scenes between Cendrillon and her hapless, good-hearted father, Pandolfe, a widower who has foolishly married an imperious countess with two entitled daughters, who all become Cinderellas tormenters. And the duets between Cinderella and her prince are tender without being soft, musically sophisticated without being fancy.

The sets and costumes, if a little garish, are certainly striking. The first scene is set in a comically surreal 1950s kitchen, all loud pinks and chromes, with monster-size appliances looming over the chorus of servants. Cendrillon first appears when the huge door to the oven swings open, and we see her cleaning the thing from inside.

The stepsisters (the soprano Lielle Berman and the mezzo-soprano Rebecca Ringle, both strong and plucky singers), in hideous dresses of pastels and polka dots, are turned into sniping dimwits. The veteran mezzo-soprano Joyce Castle made a formidable countess; you could understand why Pandolfe was so henpecked until he reached his limit later on. Eugene Brancoveanu, an earthy-voiced young baritone, brought out Pandolfes dignity, though his unfortunate wig and costume made him look like a full-size Mayor of Munchkin City.

Every time the staging started to entice me, the comedic bits went too far. At the princes ball, when the daughters of the aristocracy far and wide compete for his favor, the inane staging evokes the swimsuit competition in the Miss America pageant. During Massenets dance music, the candidates demonstrate their varied skills as homemaking, magic tricks and acrobatics.

Cendrillons Fairy Godmother (Katherine Jolly, a bright-voiced coloratura soprano in her company debut), has a posse of assistants — head-shaven Mr. Clean look-alikes and perky maids in silver aprons — who help her foster love. In one scene the fairies munch on popcorn while watching movies of their success stories, including the grand wedding of Princess Grace of Monaco.

Still, the performances of the romantic leads win you over. Prince Charming was conceived for a soprano, and purists would strongly argue that the romantic innocence Massenet wanted to convey only comes through if both voices are female. But Mr. Antoun, a dashing Canadian tenor, was a sweet-voiced and ardent prince. When we first meet him, a moping and moody young royal in a college varsity sweater, he is aching for real love, and Mr. Antoun was disarming here.

Ms. Berthon, a lovely young French soprano, brought a modest-size, lustrous, warm and true voice to her portrayal. She was beguiling from her first aria, like a forlorn folk song, which Cendrillon sings after her so-called family departs for the ball without her.

Afterward, at the ceremony in the promenade, there were tributes from some longtime company colleagues of Sills, including: the mezzo-soprano Susanne Marsee; the former wardrobe master and costumer Fred Grzyb; the coloratura soprano Gianna Rolandi, to whom Sills bequeathed some of her most important roles; and the conductor and former general director Julius Rudel.

Ms. Castle, fresh from the performance and acting as host, put the reason for honoring Sills best. We needed to have this tribute for her here, she said. We think shes ours.

New York City Opera has seven performances of Cendrillon through Nov. 18 at the New York State Theater, Lincoln Center; (212) 721-6500, nycopera.com.

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