Opera Scotland

Cenerentola 1971Edinburgh Festival Opera

Read more about the opera Cenerentola

This famous production of what is generally, though not universally, regarded as Rossini's second-best comedy, started as a joint effort between Edinburgh and the Florence Maggio Musicale, opening in Florence in May 1971. In Edinburgh Abbado had the superb London Symphony Orchestra and Scottish Opera Chorus as well as a generally expert squad of soloists, and between the two groups of performances the entire production was recorded by DG. The resulting discs are still highly recommendable as a convincing performance of the opera.

Ponnelle’s stylish and witty production was taken on by companies all over the world, and La Scala’s version was brought to Covent Garden in 1976. The basis was simple, with emphasis on black and white – grim for Magnifico’s tumble-down mansion, and more fashionable for Ramiro’s palace. There were only a few flashes of colour, the most obvious being hunting pink jackets for the gentlemen’s chorus in the opening scene. The new musical edition by Alberto Zedda cleaned a lot of corrupt detail from the score and became the model for new editions of most of Rossini’s operas which have appeared in the years since.

 

Opera at the 1971 Edinburgh Festival

The principal operatic event at the 1971 Edinburgh Festival was this staging of Rossini's Cenerentola, with an excellent cast. The Deutsche Oper, Berlin, visited for the first time, with an elderly staging of Die Entführung aus dem Serail and a brand new one of Reimann's Melusine. Scottish Opera revived its 1966 production of Die Walküre as part of its preparation for a cycle to be performed in December.