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A Birthday Party Wrapped Around a Fairy Tale

 

Donovan Elliot-Smith as Prince Charming, and Shannon Jennings as Cinderella Credit all Photos Alisa Innocenti
Lately, I started to do something I rarely do - watch scary movies. Solely to get me in the mood of Halloween, I sat through the haunted darkness of The Nun, the mayhem of Terror of Hallow’s Eve, The Curse of Crom: The Halloween Story, the eerie, bleakness of The Wind, the spine tingling Before I Wake and the strange Catholic mysticism of The Sentinel.

    Today I found the antidote, the remedy and the balance for all this cinematic darkness,  something at the opposite end of the spectral spectrum in the form of . . . drum roll, please, Cinderella.

    To help celebrate the tenth birthday of Resonance Works Pittsburgh, I headed down to the studio theater at the Carnegie Library and Music Hall in Carnegie for a staging of Cinderella, an unheralded opera by Pauline Viardot. While the Steelers were getting shellacked at home by the Jaguars, I enjoyed a glass of punch and one of the celebratory red velvet cupcakes by Grandview Bakery, part of the opera-wrapped in-a party experience.

    Before a cabaret-style performance of four wonderful singers, accompanied by Robert Frankenberry on piano, the audience was invited to try their hand a making a magic wand (mine is now enshrined in my dining room waiting for my next trip to a lottery machine where I hope to test its efficacy), take a photo next to Cinderella’s ball gown, or peruse the cookie table where Sweet Bites shaped them into Cinderella themes like carriages, slippers and clocks.

    Folks who attended Friday and Saturday’s performances were also treated to specialty cocktails and wine selections by Bar Marco and hors d’oeuvres by LadyFingers Boutique Catering. After all, its was an opera-wrapped-around-a birthday party.

Donovan Elliot-Smith as the Prince and Gabriel Hernandez as Count Barigoule

    As expected the best part of the event was the staging of Cinderella, a 70-minute long, non-stop magical musical with intervals only for a bit of narrative. The composer, Pauline Viadot-Garcia, was a singer, pianist, composer who was also a muse and mentor for many prominent composers of her era (1821-1910).  These included Saint-Saens, Massenet, Faure and Gounod. She is reputed to have had an affair with novelist Ivan Turgenev and was a close friend of Frederic Chopin. At the latter’s funeral, she sang the mezzo role for Mozart’s Requiem.

    It is said that Charles Dickens was brought to tears by one of her performances, later telling her “there is no genius in this world more sympathetic and responsive than yours.”

    For Cinderella, written when Viardot was 83, the composer sticks to the original story line of Perrault’s fairy tale., with a slight, but brilliant adaptation by stage director Emily Pulley, who also sings the role of the Fairy Godmother.

    Besides some incredible singing, the staging is quite inventive. Everything takes place in front of the audience no further back than five rows form the stage, which gives the work a very intimate feel.

The Step-sisters (Katy Lindhart and Gilian Hassert) and Shannon Jennings as Cinderella.

    Accompanied by Robert Frankenberry at the piano (Frankenberry also sings the role of Chopin), Mauren Conlon-Gutierrez on violin and Elisa Kohanski on cello, the cast includes Shannon Jennings in the title role, Donovan Elliot-Smith as Prince Charming, Gabriel Hernandez as Count Barigoule, Katy Lindhart as Maguelonne Pictordu, Patrick McNally as Baron Pictordu and Gilian Hassert as Armelinde Pictordu.

    As stage director, Pulley adds numerous humorous touches and some wonderful choreography in a dance at the royal ball that includes the snippets of the Egyptian and even the chicken dance. It’s a veritable riot of humor.

Patrick McNally as Baron Pictordu

    With ten years of programming to its credit, Res Works is one of Pittsburgh’s most inventive arts presenters with a varied repertoire of presentations. Capping of a wonderful decade of exhilarating music, their Cinderella birthday event was icing on the cake. What made it even more exciting for me was the fact that WQED’s Anna Singer sat only two seats away from mine.

    For a look at upcoming performances and the rest of Res Works season, go to www.resworks.org.  


 


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