Preview: Cendrillon
Presented by Comic (book) Opera
Bonnyville Strathcona Performing Arts Centre
June 13 and 14
For a great story, amazing music, a dazzling presentation and a fun evening out, it’s hard to beat a good opera—seriously.
Comic (book) Opera is a new Alberta company that injects fresh energy into opera. Their production of Jules Massenet’s Cendrillon is coming to the Bonnyville Strathcona theatre for two shows this weekend.
Bonnyville is one of just three Alberta communities outside of Edmonton that were selected to mount the production.
Cendrillon is the traditional, pre-Disney story of Cinderella with fairies, spirits, elves, and pixies. Comic (book) Opera takes an original and unique approach, integrating graphic-novel animation to set the stage in 19th-century Paris.
Sung in French with English sub-titles, Cendrillon tells the story of Cinderella and her father, stepmother, and stepsisters as they are invited to the palace ball. The characters are distinctively different from those that many are familiar with—fairies and pixies are not always what they seem to be.
The presentation is the real thing: live singers accompanied by a live orchestra. The animation and other stage effects complement and enhance the production, offering a 21st-century audience experience while the music and story take our imaginations back 200 years.
Edmontonian Douglas Graham, artistic director, won a Juno Award earlier this year as a singer on Pro Coro Canada’s recording Benedict Sheehan: Ukrainian War Requiem. In the groundbreaking Cendrillon production, Graham’s attention to visual and acoustic detail helps to connect audiences to the story and its characters.
While the Strathcona Performing Arts Centre stage has seen plenty of first-class “opry,” this will be its first-ever opera presentation.
Cendrillon is an excellent choice. The basic elements of the story are familiar enough (thank you Walt Disney), but the traditional tale will have surprises for modern audiences.
And while some of the story is familiar, the music is far from cliché—no horned helmets or Spanish bullfighters. Massenet delivers witty and often humorous music to the Henri Caïn libretto. And the innovative staging will add to the energy, but this is still opera, after all: it’s the singers and the orchestra who will deliver the thrills.
