Cendrillon is the story we know in America as Cinderella. Opera star Joyce DiDonato explains why this classic tale continues to resonate with audiences and unique aspects of the story in Massenet’s opera.
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TRANSCRIPT
Cendrillon is the French girl that we here in America, we know as Cinderella.
And she's a character familiar to so many of us because we grow up with her.
We grow up knowing her loneliness; that she's a person who has been rejected by family.
She has lost her mother and she feels a deep sense of sadness about that.
[ music and French singing ] But she is a girl who holds on to hope and she is a girl who holds on to the idea that goodness and love really conquers.
And we find that in this story that she finds her prince.
What I like about this story, she's not dependent on the prince, but the prince is kind of a manifestation of her loving nature.
It's not that she needs the prince, but she's very happy to find him.
