Opera. People singing inaccessible music in a language you don’t understand, in service to an impossibly contrived plot, to an audience inexplicably dressed in white tie. This is perhaps the image you have of what an opera looks like. I’m producing this year’s Cambridge University Opera Society Mainshow, and I’d like to try to convince you to give it a go. I’m no expert on opera; in fact, my first live experience with was last year’s show, Carmen, although I hope that puts me in a position to sympathise with first-time opera-goers.

Unlike a lot of student and amateur opera societies, which often limit themselves to the more traditional of the West End musicals, CUOS has a proud history of staging classical operas, especially in its annual Mainshow slot at West Road Concert Hall. This year’s show is Rossini’s La Cenerentola. First things first – the story. If one of your biggest concerns as a first-time opera-goer is actually understanding what’s going on, then I’ve got good news for you. It’s Cinderella. There are a couple of differences with the familiar fairy tale: rather than an evil stepmother, it’s an evil stepfather, the magnificently named Don Magnifico; there’s no magic; and there’s a fun plot line in which the prince switches places with his valet in order to better assess the character of his potential brides. 

If one of your biggest concerns as a first-time opera-goer is actually understanding what’s going on, then I’ve got good news for you. It’s Cinderella.

Rossini was keen to make the opera about the triumph of kindness and decency over selfishness. Hence, the stepsisters are vain and cruel rather than ugly, and Cenerentola rescues herself from their clutches by her good heart. It’s sung in Italian, but the show is fully subtitled on screens set next to the stage, so it’s easy to follow along. All this is set to some absolutely fabulous music. Rossini’s score is light and charming with lots of truly joyous sections. Unlike some of the heavier operas, it doesn’t test the audience’s patience, and is all wrapped up in under 150 minutes. We are fortunate in Cambridge to have a wide array of superb classical singers, who have lots of fun with this sparkling music, under the watchful eye of our splendid musical director Luke Fitzgerald.

Our production places the story in 1950s Rome, inspired by the classic 1953 Hollywood film starring Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday. Famed for its exquisite design and cinematography, the film is a kind of inverse Cinderella story. A visiting princess escapes the restrictive world of royal protocol for 24 hours spent as an ordinary woman, intoxicated with the sites of Rome. We hope to bring some of the film’s glamour and enchantment to life in the opera. It inspires our costume and set – we’re even replacing the prince’s carriage with a Vespa! The production concept was the idea of director Madeleine Trépanier, who’s scored successes over the last year or so with Northanger Abbey (Selwyn Chapel; Edinburgh Fringe) and Mary Stuart (Round Church), both of which received 5 stars from Varsity. She blends elegant design with a real comic energy, aided by some very game performers. La Cenerentola is a genuinely funny opera. It almost feels like a pantomime in places, with particular fun to be had with the preening step-family, and the mistaken identity subplot of the prince and valet. But the production never loses sight of Rossini’s powerful central narrative of a young woman freeing herself from an abusive situation through her own inner strength.  

We’re replacing the Prince’s carriage with a Vespa!

We hope the production will provide a night of high-class musical and theatrical entertainment. It’s equally important to us that the show is accessible to everyone. West Road is an informal venue, there’s no dress code whatsoever, and student tickets for all seats and at all performances are priced at £8, very much at the low end of what you might expect to pay for a production of this scale in Cambridge. Above all, we’ll consider our production a success if we manage to convince lots of people to take a chance on this wonderful opera! 

La Cenerentola will run at West Road Concert Hall Thursday 20th- Saturday 22nd February. Evening performances start at 19.45, and there is a matinée performance at 13.3 on Saturday