Cinderella at London Coliseum

Despite the much-publicised turbulence of recent years, English National Opera opens its first season with Julia Burbach’s fairly successful, frothy, fun-filled adaptation of Rossini’s operatic drama giocoso Cinderella (or La Cenerentola).

Featuring a vivid set and costume design from Herbert Maurauer and Sussie Juhlin-Wallén, respectively, a lively ENO debut from Taiwanese conductor Yi-Chen Lin and a verbose but deliciously witty translation by Christopher Cowell, the core ingredients are there for the production to be an entertaining family treat. Yet, two elements take the comic sting out of the it’s tail.  

Firstly, some scenes feel over-stuffed with stage business that takes too much away from the wondrous libretto. Secondly, the adaptation of Alidoro’s role falls notably flat. Though he is given the supernatural capability (notably eschewed from Ferretti’s original libretto) to control mice, the comedy generated from their deployment is comically underwhelming; in addition, the added interplay between Alidoro and the ghost of Cinderella’s mother (Sarah Stoner) feels awkwardly shoe-horned into the narrative and, so, adds very little to the show’s overall effect.

Despite these two thorns in the show’s side, there is much which transforms Cinderella into more than an opera where the vocal dexterity of the performers’ voices or the deft skill of the conductor takes centre stage. Indeed, those performers who fully embrace the farcical challenges Burbach requires of them are the undoubted highlights of this modernisation.

While the violence of Don Magnifico is rightly downplayed, presumably to appropriately cater for broad family appeal, bass-baritone Simon Bailey is utterly captivating from first entrance to curtain call, as are the deliciously fiendish sisters, Clorinda (Isabelle Peters) and Tisbe (Grace Durham), and the gloriously foolish Dandini (Charles Rice).  In addition, the men of the ENO Chorus, dressed, some in wondrous drag, in thoroughly delectable crimson-red royal costuming spanning Tudor to modern Saxe-Coburg, bring delightful vibrancy in each moment they are deployed.  

If only there were more opportunities for them and others to re-energise the more cheerless moments that, particularly in act one, can be linked to the extensive occasions featuring Deepa Johnny’s Cinderella and Aaron Godfrey-Mayes’s Don Ramiro. Though the characters’ roles are to forward an important moral message about the virtues of kindness and forgiveness, a lesson that could well do with reinforcement in the modern social climate, the sensitivity of their performances feels incongruent within what is, otherwise, an energetic and high-spirited re-imagining of this Rossini classic.

Francis Nash
Photos: Mark Douet

Cinderella is at the London Coliseum until 14^th October 2025. For further information or to book, visit the theatre’s website here.