Les Arts premieres 'Cendrillon', by Pauline Viardot, the first new operatic production in 2023

'Les Arts és Òpera'

• Joan Font proposes a fun and carefree adaptation of the opera that the legendary artist of Spanish origin will compose based on Perrault's count
• After the start of the season with contemporary 'Zelle', by Anglo-Chinese Jamie Man, the Center de Perfection premieres the second work composed by a donut

Valencia (07.02.23). Les Arts premieres, on February 9, 'Cendrillon', by Pauline Viardot, the first new operatic production of 2023, which includes the stage direction of Joan Font and the artists of the Center de Perfection del Palau de les Arts with the main protagonists.

The artistic director of Les Arts, Jesús Iglesias Noriega, presented this title at a press conference, accompanied by the muntatge's stage director, Joan Font, and the musical advisor of the Center de Perfection, María Bayo.

Iglesias Noriega has underlined the important commitment he made to the theater to introduce the Viardot salon opera, for which he has donated “absolute carte blanche” to Joan Font.

The director and founder of 'Comedians' has developed, as Iglesias Noriega explains, a new dramaturgy, with more agile and popular dialogues that includes musical numbers alien to the score, in an implicit reference to the variety show, to which the recognized talent of the Catalan is united to turn the work “into a authentic xou.”

However, Font creates a framework in advance to put the work on stage and present the characters, among whom he also includes the pianist, as well as workers from a moving company, who, upon discovering Viardot's score, propose to represent it.

Així mateix, Jesús Iglesias Noriega has highlighted the selection of the work with a vindication of the essential figure of Pauline Viardot, daughter of the legendary Spanish singer, professor and composer Manuel García, from whom Les Arts will premiere 'Un avvertimento ai gelosi' l'any passat.

“The also German of the mythical Maria Malibrán is one of the most fascinating gifts of the passat segle: a prodigious interpreter of vision and enigmatic and mysterious personality, at the same time that is attractive and captivating.”

“Cosmopolitan, versatile, entrepreneurial and of exquisite culture, she will be a composer, singer, pianist, singing teacher and in her biography she is believed to be some of the most relevant figures of the time: Gioachino Rossini, Frédéric Chopin, George Sand, Ferenc Liszt, Richard Wagner, Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms or Camille Saint-Saëns,” Iglesias Noriega indicated.

In an opera course that the Center de Perfectionament will begin with the premiere of the contemporary 'Zelle', by the Anglo-Xinese Jamie Man, the vision of another pioneering dona in its time, the 'Cendrillon', by Viardot, completes the formative commitment of the enguany artists.

The current promotion of the Center de Perfection stars this title: Rosa Dávila ('Cendrillon'), Mariana Sofia ('Armelinde'), Iria Goti ('Maguelone'), Pilar Garrido ('La Fée'), Marcelo Solís ('Le Baron de Pictordu'), Maximiliano Spósito ('Le Comte Barigoule') and the pianist Ignacio Aparisi. The Valencian tenor Álvaro Diana plays the role of Le Prince Charmant.

The production consists of sets by Manuel Zuriaga, costumes by José María Adame and lighting by Nadia García. After its first performances at the Martín i Soler Theatre, 'Cendrillon', in its second adaptation to Valencia, 'La Ventafocs', will visit the municipalities of the Valencian Community starting in June on the Les Arts Volant road.

The Martín i Soler Theater held three performances open to the general public of the work on February 9, 16 and 18, together with a performance reserved exclusively for the public of the didactic program 'Les Arts és Educació'. Locations for 'Cendrillon' have a single price of 30 euros.

'Cendrillon'

'Cendrillon' is Pauline Viardot's last work, premiered in 1904, just after her death. The author of the book is also based on 'La Ventafocs' by Perrault, but introduced some modifications in the content, among these, La Ventafocs is not a stepmother, but it is one of a kind of liar, the Baró de Pictordu, who denies the true name, and the former Germans Maguelone and Armelinde are selfish, but not unpleasant.

Musically, Viardot's opera is an espill of wonderful friendships and aesthetic experiences. It is not difficult to recognize phrases dedicated to Massenet or Gounod; compasses inspired by Wagner's esperit and, above all, by his esteem Chopin. Furthermore, floating in Cendrillon's spirit is the essence of the French evasive lyrical theater that, during the second half of the 19th century, came to Paris with Offenbach: the operette, the vaudeville and the opera-comique have radiated its infectious influence on the lyrical theaters. d'evasió.

In 'Cendrillon', Viardot employs the cuplet of operetta and Welsh vaudeville, and at a historic moment in which Spain created the cuplet as a cançó-spectacle. In this sense, the inclusion in the spectacle of music presented by the huge repertoire generated in Spain between 1900 and the Civil War -fonamentally, in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia- responds to what is a reality: the creation of a new dramatic musical repertoire from the mixture of traditional models of the xic genre and the great sarsuela, both the vinguts rhythms of France.