Alma Deutscher: Cinderella

   in Opera Now (Mar, 2019)
Alma Deutscher could do with editing her opera, Cinderella. But as she composed it when she was just 10 years old, she has plenty of time to tinker with it should she wish, (and in fact has already reduced it for performances on the Vienna Staatsoper’s studio stage). This performance is from Opera San José, and sung in English. The music is generous in spirit, awash with tunes, and with the graceful lilt of a Viennese operetta. It sometimes tends to schmaltz, and could I be mistaken in hearing Rossini in the overture (the Contessa di Folleville’s aria from Il Viaggio a Reims)? There is also dialogue, a bit clunky, …