LA CENERENTOLA – ROSSINI
Presented on Apr 3, 5, 7 at the Gaiety Theatre Dublin as part of the Dublin Grand Opera Society’s Spring Season
Giuseppina Dalle Molle – Angelina
Ugo Benelli – Ramiro
Angelo Romero – Dandini
Sergio Pezzetti – Magnifico
Terry Reid – Clorinda
Ruth Maher – Tisbe
Alberto Carusi – Alidoro
Napoleone Annovazzi – Conductor
Philippe Perrottet – Producer
Listen to this production here:
It had been a sparkling spring season with Ugo Benelli proving a good judge of Irish operatic taste. He had, he told me later, suggested Rossini’s “La Cenerentola” to Colonel Bill O’Kelly, saying he would be free to sing the role of Don Ramiro. ‘I had sung it many times in Continental houses and it appeared to me that audiences liked the opera very much. You can imagine my pleasure when Colonel O’Kelly said the society would do it for the first time!’ Besides the popular lyric tenor, the cast also included the talented Angelo Romero, who made a believable character out of Dandini, Ramiro’s valet, and sang Rossini’s music most stylishly. Aileen Walsh recalls mezzo-soprano Giuseppina Dalle Molle’s fine performance as Angelina (known as Cinderella) and how beautifully she sang in the final scene of the opera. Paddy Brennan regarded the cast as excellent with Benelli showing how good a Rossini singer he could be. But Angelo Romero, he said, handled the most difficult music in the opera in commendable fashion. Ruth Maher and Terry Reid, as the Baron’s daughters, fitted easily into Philippe Perrottet’s production. ‘I enjoyed the whole thing immensely,’ Ms Maher told me later. ‘And what a cast we had!’
(Extracted from “Love and Music: The Glorious History of the Dublin Grand Opera Society” by Gus Smith, 1998)
Opera in Ireland 