Reviewed by James Karas
On January 1, 2022, New York’s Metropolitan Opera did something unusual. It transmitted Jules Massenet’s opera Cendrillon, to movie theatres around the world as part of its Live in HD from the Met series. The performance was sung in English and the shortened version being transmitted was intended to entertain children as well as adults. The opera was given its English name, Cinderella and was shown only once. Four years later that performance was transmitted again on February 21, 2026
The full opera directed by Laurent Pelly, opened at the Met in April 2018. But this transmission of a shortened version running 1 hour and 47 minutes presumably to account for introductory and closing remarks was done without intermission. The 2018 production lasted 2 hours and 50 minutes.
The shortened version eliminated some characters and scenes but told the Cinderella story effectively. Do not mix Massenet’s Cinderella or Cendrillon with Rossini’s La Cenerentola. They are very different.
This performance starred the lovely mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard as the abused Cinderella who dreams of going to the fancy ball in the palace. Leonard is vocally and physically captivating, exuding innocence and gorgeous sounds. In the meantime, her hideous step-sisters with the help of their mother (distinguished mezzo Stephanie Blythe) prepare to go to the ball and snag Prince Charming (mezzo soprano Emily D’Angelo) as a husband. The sisters and their mother dress in puffed up clothes, sport awful hairdos, play for laughs and are splendid at it.
We meet Cinderella’s father Pandolfe, (bass baritone Laurent Naouri) a henpecked man under the thumb and abuse of his second wife, Madame de la Haltière. He had Cinderella with his first wife. Naouri is vocally fine and presents a pathetic but decent man.
The catalyst of the story is the Fairy Godmother sung by Jessica Pratt who appears spry in a fancy gown with vocal flourishes and awakens the dreaming Cinderella. She promises her a beautiful gown, glass slippers and a horse-drawn carriage to take Cinderella to the ball. In the beginning, Prince Charming looks like an emotionally troubled teenager but when he looks at Cinderella and she looks at him and we hear their gorgeous duet, well, we can recognize love when we see it.
Photo: Karen Almond / Met Opera
But Cinderella has a midnight curfew and she dashes out in the nick of time, leaving one of her glass slippers behind. And you know the rest.
Choreographer Laura Scozzi provides some comic and beautiful ballet sequences performed by the Met Opera Ballet. Emmanuel Villaume conducted the entire production.
The costumes by Laurent Pelly are fairytale suitable. The wicked stepsisters and stepmother, as I said, are dressed and act to evoke laughter. In their costumes puffed at the middle they look like they may fly off. The Fairy Godmother’s gown is beautiful and otherworldly. Cinderella looks stunning in the gown the Fairy Godmother provides and she is gorgeous and on our side. The actors that draw the carriage to the ball wear horses’ heads and are very friendly.
The set by Barbara de Limburg consists of a series of moveable panels on three sides of the stage with French writing on them. The panels have a number of doors that facilitate entry and exit of characters. Is the French writing on the panels to remind us that this Cinderella is really Cendrillon?
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Cinderella being a shortened version of Cendrillon by Jules Massenet was initially performed and transmitted from New York’s Metropolitan Opera House on January 1, 2022, and again on February 21, 2026, at select Cineplex theatres across Canada. For more information go to: www.cineplex.com/events
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