La Cenerentola
| La Cenerentola | |
|---|---|
| Opera by Gioachino Rossini | |
Rossini c. 1815, portrait by Vincenzo Camuccini
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| Description | dramma giocoso |
| Other title | La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo |
| Librettist | Jacopo Ferretti |
| Language | Italian |
| Based on |
Cendrillon by Charles Perrault |
| Premiere | 25 January 1817 Teatro Valle, Rome |
La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo (Cinderella, or Goodness Triumphant) is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the fairy tale Cendrillon by Charles Perrault. The opera was first performed in Rome's Teatro Valle on 25 January 1817.
Rossini composed La Cenerentola when he was 25 years old, following the success of The Barber of Seville the year before. La Cenerentola, which he completed in a period of three weeks, is considered to have some of his finest writing for solo voice and ensembles. Rossini saved some time by reusing an overture from La gazzetta and part of an aria from The Barber of Seville and by enlisting a collaborator, Luca Agolini, who wrote the secco recitatives and three numbers (Alidoro's "Vasto teatro è il mondo", Clorinda's "Sventurata!" and the chorus "Ah, della bella incognita"). The facsimile edition of the autograph has a different aria for Alidoro, "Fa' silenzio, odo un rumore"; this seems to have been added by an anonymous hand for an 1818 production. For an 1820 revival in Rome, Rossini wrote a bravura replacement, "La, del ciel nell'arcano profondo".
The genesis of this work, written with surprising speed – both for the literary and the musical parts – deserves to be told, according to the account that Ferretti himself (the librettist) gave: in December 1816 Rossini was in Rome with the task of writing, for the Teatro Valle, a new opera to be staged on St. Stephen's Day; due to an unexpected last-minute veto by the papal censor, considering the impossibility to correct the existing libretto in order to satisfy all parties (censorship, impresario and authors), the subject – Francesca di Foix – was rejected, and a replacement had to be found.
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