As the lock down continues throughout the UK, people and businesses unite to support each other in attempt to survive. But for us, humans, survival is not enough to feel mentally healthy and happy – we need things like entertainment to distract our minds from challenging reality and simple boredom of another day at home. The Royal Opera has come to our rescue, starting a movement under catchy hashtag #OurHouseToYourHouse . As all social events are now suspended, the ROH is releasing some of their performance records to the public for free on their YouTube channel. It is an amazing gesture towards fans of ballet and operas. The premieres are scheduled in advance and preceded with short Teasers and Rehersal videos. Once the main performance  is released, it is available on-demand on the ROH YouTube channel.

Yesterday we were blessed with Premiere of a Laurent Pelly’s production of Massenet’s Cendrillon, an adaptation of the famous Cinderella fairytale.

As usual, in preparation for my blog post, I have done some research about the original stories and their theatrical adaptations, and as usual, I came to a realisation how little I knew. There were tens or maybe even hundreds variations of the story, from the Greek story “Rhodopis” from 6-th century BC, through Ye Xian, a Chinese tale written in year 850, to few stories in One Thousand and One Nights, and many, many more. Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre, by Perrault in 1697 France, is most familiar to me, as it was made into Disney’s movie, which I watched as a kid.

The Opera story is a very new look at a story that is regarded as a tale for children. I really enjoyed it despite being an adult now.