Frederica von Stade's long career and broad repertoire includes the work of many French composers, and this week on the LS we feature her in arias and duets from a 1979 recording of Jules Massenet's Cendrillon.
The selections we have center on Cinderella and her Prince Charming in this take on the many times told tale of unjust tyranny and eventual glowing reward, which has versions going back as far as ancient Greece. Massenet and his librettist, Henry Cain, used Charles Perrault's 1697 version of the story which includes the Fairy Godmother, the ball, the glass slipper, and the infatuated Prince who scours the land and finds Cinderella after he loses her at the stroke of midnight. The love duet from the third act which is framed as a dream, "A doux Genoux", is an addition to this version.
Von Stade sings Cinderella and Nicolai Gedda is her Prince Charming. Julius Rudel conducts the Ambrosian Opera Chorus and the Philharmonia Orchestra. She will also sing "Bailero" from The Songs of the Auvergne, and two of Cherubino's arias from the The Marriage of Figaro.