Cenerentola
ovvero Angelina e la magia del cuore
from Gioachino Rossini’s opera La Cenerentola with Jacopo Ferretti’s libretto
dramaturgical adaptation, direction, scenes and costumes: Roberta Cortese
musical arrangement and conduction: Carlo Pavese
with: Federica Carnevale, Alessandro Luciano, Oliviero Giorgiutti, Brian Nickel, Maria Carla Curia, Sara Nastos
and with the Laboratorio Ensemble and the Children’s Choir of Teatro Regio and “G. Verdi” Conservatory in Turin – choirmaster Claudio Marino Moretti
Piccolo Teatro Regio Torino 2008 and 2009
in collaboration with CineTeatro Baretti for “La scuola all’opera”, a music theatre education project for schools held in the Piccolo Regio Puccini hall
Being Cenerentola a well known fairy tale, and being this a production specifically conceived for a very young audience, participating in the show and singing some choir numbers together with the children’s choir on stage, I wanted that audience to almost enter the story and immediately feel connected to the stage. Therefore, my concept for the setting was a series of giant fairy tale books: multipurpose, transformable and movable pop-up books, objects hiding some surprise, but also very familiar ones.
While I was working on the stage rendition with the young singers and the children’s choir, I also worked with the mediation team on the educational dossier and on how to prepare our young audience to the show. I provided the teachers with an account of the differences between this Cenerentola and the better known one, while I provided the children with some paper templates and an easy choreography for their choir numbers. They got a 3D paper cut of Ramiro’s castle they could play with at home and some fine headgear in the same style of the costumes they could put on during the show, while singing and dancing together with the cast.
Photos © Ramella&Giannese
