The 2017–18 Live in HD season concluded with an enchanted performance of Cendrillon, Massenet’s glittering operatic adaptation of the Cinderella story. This charming staging by Laurent Pelly, which bursts to life with the director’s characteristic wit and whimsy, stars American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato as the title outcast-turned-princess. Mezzo-soprano Alice Coote offers a touching portrayal of the pants role Prince Charming, while soprano Kathleen Kim shines as the Fairy Godmother. Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, as the outlandish Madame de la Haltière, and bass-baritone Laurent Naouri, as the haggard Pandolfe, round out the principal cast. On the podium, conductor Bertrand de Billy leads a performance that is equal parts madcap comedy and heartfelt romance.

With its combination of enchanting love story and broad, burlesque comedy, Cendrillon is one of the great operatic fairy tales a Cinderella that looks back to Charles Perraults original story in all its richness and ambiguity. Massenets sensuous Belle Epoque fairy tale is gilded with lavish orchestral textures and glittering vocal writing, drawing on everything from baroque dances to Wagner-inspired chromaticism to bring its story to colourful life, conjuring a world of infinite musical and emotional variety.

获奖无数的恐怖片导演受邀拍摄一部新的鬼片，投资商点名要求当红小生那成出任男主角，这可愁坏了剧组人员。因为那成不仅脾气暴躁、傲慢无理，他的妈妈更是神神道道，深信各种法术，并想尽办法帮儿子的事业助力。在整个拍摄过程中，那成母子和剧组人员的摩擦不断，矛盾最终在某小岛上爆发。那成在和剧组争吵时被道具刺伤眼睛，之后更跌落山坡，遭汽车碾压而死。悲剧并未阻止影片的拍摄，剧组选了名不见经传的年轻人阿弩接替那成的位置。 　　接二连三的变故令那成的妈妈悲痛欲绝，她愤怒地施出法术，召唤出已长眠地下的那成。恶鬼的复仇旋即展开……

Massenet composed his opera about Cenerentola nearly 80 years after Rossini did his. And if you are looking for the outburst of the non-stop hilarity and the musical jokes of Rossini, you won't find it here. Also, while the Cendrillon was highly successful and popular in its time, it does not reach up to the artistic and musical levels offered by Massenet's other operas, like Manon, or Thais or Werther. Nevertheless, this is a delightful opera and it is well presented by The Royal Opera. Laurent Pelly created a ingenious setting with movable walls which are covered [in French] with the story of Cinderella, and which open and close book-like.

A young woman enters her new apartment. Her husband will come to join her in a few days. The apartment, very dirty, is located between a cemetery and a hospital. She undertakes a major cleaning. The more she cleans, the dirtier she gets. Objects resist and revolt.

Werther loves Charlotte, but she promised her mother on her deathbed that she would marry Albert. After the marriage Charlotte suggests that Werther should travel – but not forget her. Benoît Jacquot’s production of Massenet’s tragic opera explores the conflict between duty and our most passionate desires.

Forbidden love, wrongdoings and anguish: the Opernhaus Zürich ventures into late nineteenth-century French romanticism with Werther by Jules Massenet. A loose adaptation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethes epistolary novel 'The Sorrows of Young Werther', the opera is conducted by Germanys Cornelius Meister. It tells the story of the impossible union of poet Werther to Charlotte, a woman of duty already promised to a wealthy businessman. Goethes drama is echoed in Massenets score by emotionally wide-ranging vocal parts written on a grand scale. Juan Diego Flórez is undisputedly one of the best belcanto tenors of our times and embodies a tortured and nuanced Werther. 'Its not a profane appearance of any singer it is an epiphany!' gushes the Neue Zürcher Zeitung in a rave review. At Flórezs side, Franco-British mezzo-soprano Anna Stéphany sang her role début as Charlotte. The one-room staging by Tatjana Gürbaca cleverly makes the social stranglehold of oppression tangible.

Star soprano Anna Netrebko scored a triumph in Laurent Pelly’s acclaimed 2012 production, singing the title heroine for the first time at the Met. Manon’s story—from innocent country girl to celebrated courtesan to destitute prisoner—is one of the great tragic tales in literature and music, and this performance brings out all of its colors, as seen through Massenet’s masterful score, from the comedic beginning to the heart-wrenching finale. Piotr Bezcala is des Grieux, Manon’s lover, who decides to become a priest when she leaves him, but ultimately is reunited with her, only to lose her again. Paulo Szot sings Lescaut, and Fabio Luisi conducts the Met Orchestra and Chorus.

The plot incorporates many elements from the Cinderella story, transposed into a modern context. Cindy is a young mixed-race girl, the daughter of an Irish pilot who recently disappeared and a “Sun Girl” whom she never knew. She lives in the suburbs with her stepmother La Palma and her two stepsisters Pétula and Tamara who mistreat her. Her consolations are her favorite dance, the jig, which her father taught her, and a few outings, which cannot last long, however, because her stepmother threatens to kick her out if she does not return home before midnight.